FOOTNOTE:

From von Bernstorff, at Rye, N. Y., to Olifiers, transmitting Chakravarty's report

"August 5, 1916—Our organization has been well perfected in the West Indies and Houssain has been approached. We have also enlisted the sympathy of the Gongoles party, a strong fighting body of colored people, who have ramifications all over Central America, including British Guiana and Guatemala. Arms can be easily smuggled there and if we can get some of the German officers in this country to go there and lead them there is every possibility that we can hold quite a while. But the question is—ask the Foreign Secretary whether it is desirable, for it might simply create a sensation and nothing more. As soon as we hold there the Governmental power the island would be isolated by the British navy, and the attitude of the United States is uncertain, and we may be compelled to surrender sooner or later; but if it serves any purpose either as a blind or otherwise, and after due consideration of its advantages and disadvantages, wire at once the authorities here to give us a few officers, as we need them badly, and other help necessary to carry out the plan, and it can be done without much difficulty. I believe if a sensation is desired something also can be done in London, at least should be tried. If we can get a few men from the Pacific Coast we can send them easily as a crew with a Dutch passport."We are sending arms in small quantities through Chinese coolies over the border in Burmah, but in big quantities we do not find possibility. However, we are on the lookout. We have been trying our best with a Japanese firm who have a business affiliation in Calcutta,whether they will undertake to transmit some arms through their goods."To complete the chain we are sending Mr. Chandra to London as a medical student in the university, and he will send men and other informations to you via Switzerland. We are also sending a few Chinese students to China to help us in the work, and if you want it can also be arranged they give you a personal report through Russia and Sweden."We need $15,000 more, as I return from the Pacific Coast, to carry out these plans, excepting that of Trinidad operations, which, if you approve, wire at once the military agent here to arrange to buy and ship arms to us, before the enemy can be on guard."

"We are sending arms in small quantities through Chinese coolies over the border in Burmah, but in big quantities we do not find possibility. However, we are on the lookout. We have been trying our best with a Japanese firm who have a business affiliation in Calcutta,whether they will undertake to transmit some arms through their goods.

"To complete the chain we are sending Mr. Chandra to London as a medical student in the university, and he will send men and other informations to you via Switzerland. We are also sending a few Chinese students to China to help us in the work, and if you want it can also be arranged they give you a personal report through Russia and Sweden.

"We need $15,000 more, as I return from the Pacific Coast, to carry out these plans, excepting that of Trinidad operations, which, if you approve, wire at once the military agent here to arrange to buy and ship arms to us, before the enemy can be on guard."

To H. Eisenhuth, Copenhagen, in cipher

"September 5, 1916—Arms can no more be safely sent to India through Pacific, except through Japanese merchandise or through China merchants, shipped to Chinese ports and then to our border. Responsible men are willing to take the risk and they are willing to send their confidential agents to Turaulleur."

Chakravarty to Berlin, Foreign Office

"September 5, 1916—Li Yuan Hung is now President of China. He was formerly the southern revolutionary leader. W. T. Wang was then his private secretary. He is now in America and starting for China. He says Li Yuan Hung is in sympathy with the Indian revolution and would like English power weakened. Some of the prominent people are quite eager to help India directly,and Germany indirectly, without exposing themselves to any great risk, on three conditions:"The first—Germany to make a secret treaty with China, that in case China is attacked by any power or powers, Germany will give her military aid. It will be obligatory for five years after the discontinuance of the present war and there will be an understanding that China shall get one-tenth of all arms and ammunition she will receive for and deliver to the Indian revolutionaries and the Indian border."In return, China shall prohibit the delivery of arms and ammunition in the name of the Chinese Government and from China through private sailing boats and by coolies to any nearby point or any border place as directed. She will help Indian revolutionaries as she can, secretly and in accord with her own safety."But this is to be regarded as a feeler through a third party, and, if it is acceptable to the German Government, then they will send one of their trusted representatives to Berlin to discuss the details and plan of operations, and if it is settled, then negotiations should take place officially and papers signed through the embassies in Berlin and Peking. They want to know the attitude of the German Foreign Office as soon as possible so that they can set the ball rolling for necessary arrangements."

"The first—Germany to make a secret treaty with China, that in case China is attacked by any power or powers, Germany will give her military aid. It will be obligatory for five years after the discontinuance of the present war and there will be an understanding that China shall get one-tenth of all arms and ammunition she will receive for and deliver to the Indian revolutionaries and the Indian border.

"In return, China shall prohibit the delivery of arms and ammunition in the name of the Chinese Government and from China through private sailing boats and by coolies to any nearby point or any border place as directed. She will help Indian revolutionaries as she can, secretly and in accord with her own safety.

"But this is to be regarded as a feeler through a third party, and, if it is acceptable to the German Government, then they will send one of their trusted representatives to Berlin to discuss the details and plan of operations, and if it is settled, then negotiations should take place officially and papers signed through the embassies in Berlin and Peking. They want to know the attitude of the German Foreign Office as soon as possible so that they can set the ball rolling for necessary arrangements."

Von Bernstorff to Zimmermann

"October 13, 1916—Chakravarty's reply is not sent; too long. Require at end of October a further $15,000. According to news which has arrived here Okechi has not received the $2000 and in the meantime left Copenhagen.Please withhold payment until Polish National Committee provides therefor."Bernstorff."

"Bernstorff."

To Olifiers, Amsterdam, postmarked Washington

"November 21, 1916—Rabindranath Tagore has come at our suggestion and saw Count Okuma, Baron Shimpei Goto, Masaburo Suzuki, Marquis Yamanouchi, Count Terauchi and others; Terauchi is favorable and others are sympathetic. Rash Behari Bose is still there to see whether they can be persuaded to do something positive for our cause. S. Sekunna and G. Marsushita are doing their best. Yamatashimbun is strongly advocating our cause. D. Pal has not come. Benoy Sarkar is still in China. Lala is willing to go, but this passage could not be arranged. As soon as Tilak arrives he will be approached. Bapat is still free and writes that he has been trying his best, but for want of arms they have not been able to do anything. Received a note from Abdul Kadir and Shamshar Singh from Termes-Buchare that they are proceeding on slowly to their destination. Barkatullah is in Kabul; well received, lacks funds. Mintironakaono is here. Isam Uhiroi is in Pekin. Tarak has safely reached there. Our publication work is going on well. We have brought out seven pamphlets and one in the press. We are waiting for definite instructions as to the work in Trinidad and Damrara."Wu Ting Fang has been now made the Foreign Minister. He has always been sympathetic with our cause. But the influence of Sun Yat Sen still persists in opposing us in that direction."

"Wu Ting Fang has been now made the Foreign Minister. He has always been sympathetic with our cause. But the influence of Sun Yat Sen still persists in opposing us in that direction."

Zimmermann to Bernstorff

"December 20, 1916—According to Chakravarty, the Indians were paid up to September 30 $30,000. Total credit for Indians, $65,000."Zimmermann."

"December 20, 1916—According to Chakravarty, the Indians were paid up to September 30 $30,000. Total credit for Indians, $65,000.

"Zimmermann."

Zimmermann to Bernstorff

"January 4, 1917—very secret. The Japanese, Hideo Nakao, is traveling to America with important instructions from the Indian Committee. He is to deal exclusively with Chakravarty. Please, after consultation with Chakravarty, inform Imperial Minister at Peking and the Imperial Consulate at Shanghai that they are to send in Nakao's reports regularly. I advise giving Nakao in installments up to fifty thousand dollars in all for the execution of his plans in America and Eastern Asia. Decision as to the utility of the separate payments is left to your excellency and the Imperial Legation at Peking. Despatch follows."(Signed)Zimmermann."

"(Signed)Zimmermann."

On March 7, 1917, Guy Scull, deputy police commissioner in New York, with eight detectives, called at 364 West 120th Street, found Dr. Chakravarty clad in a loin cloth, and arrested him on a charge of setting afoot a military enterprise against the Emperor of India. With Sekunna, a German who had been writing tracts for him, he was later transferred to San Francisco to stand trial. The typewriter in the 120th Street house, whose characteristics—all typewriters are asindividual and as identifiable as finger-prints—had betrayed the conspirators, lay idle for many months, but as late as March 18, 1918, a Hindu, Sailandra Nath Ghose, who had collaborated with Taraknath Das in writing a propaganda work called "The Isolation of Japan in world politics," was arrested there in company with a German woman, Agnes Smedley. The two were accused of violating the espionage act by representing themselves to be diplomatic agents of the Indian Nationalist Party, and of having sent an appeal for aid in the establishment of a democratic federated republic in India to the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, to Leon Trotzky in Russia, and to the Governments of Panama, Paraguay, Chile and other neutral nations.

In the course of the years 1916 and 1917 the Government built up an unusually exhaustive and troublesome case for nearly one hundred defendants, including the personnel of the San Francisco consulate, the German consul at Honolulu (who had supplied theMaverickin Hilo Harbor[5]), a large group of Hindu students, a smaller group of war brokers, and numerous lesser intermediaries. Their trial was one of the most cumbersome and interesting cases ever heard inan American court. It began on November 19, 1917, in San Francisco, with Judge Van Fleet on the bench. Witness after witness recited his story of adventure, each stranger than the last, and all stranger than fiction. Lieutenant von Brincken, one of the San Francisco consulate, pleaded guilty within a few weeks; his sentence was long deferred by the prosecution on account, presumably, of evidence which he supplied the Government. George Rodiek, the German consul in Honolulu, followed suit and was fined heavily; Jodh Singh turned state's evidence and presently his mind became diseased and he was committed to an asylum; the procedure was interrupted from time to time with wrangles among the defendants, and on one occasion Franz Bopp, the San Francisco consul, shouted to one of his fellows, "You are spoiling the whole case!" When the Government, through United States Attorney Preston, introduced evidence from the Department of State, the Hindus attempted to subpœna Secretary Lansing; when Bryan's pacifist tracts were introduced the defendants sought Bryan. On April 18, 1918, Chakravarty confessed, to the irritation of the other defendants. The climax in melodrama occurred on the afternoon of April 23, 1918, when, with the case all but concluded, Ram Singhshot and killed Ram Chandra in the courtroom. A moment later Ram Singh lay dead, his neck broken by a bullet fired over the heads of the attorneys by United States Marshal Holohan. That afternoon Judge Van Fleet delivered his charge to the jury; that night a verdict of guilty was returned against twenty-nine of the thirty-two defendants who had not been dismissed as the trial proceeded.

Judge Van Fleet, on April 30, 1918, pronounced the following sentences:

Franz Bopp, German consul in San Francisco, two years in the penitentiary and $10,000 fine; F. H. von Schack, vice-consul, the same punishment; Lieutenant von Brincken, military attaché of the consulate, two years' imprisonment without fine; Walter Sauerbeck, lieutenant commander in the German navy, an officer of theGeierinterned in Honolulu, one year's imprisonment and $2,000 fine; Charles Lattendorf, von Brincken's secretary, one year in jail; Edwin Deinat, master of the German shipHolsatia, interned in Honolulu, a term of ten months in jail and a fine of $1,500; Heinrich Felbo, master of the German shipAhlers, interned in Hilo, Hawaii, six months in jail and a fine of $1,000. These men may be described as the loyal German group.

Robert Capelle, agent in San Francisco of theNorth German Lloyd line, fifteen months' imprisonment and a fine of $7,500; Harry J. Hart, a San Francisco shipping man, six months in jail and a fine of $5,000; Joseph Bley of the firm of C. D. Bunker & Co., customs brokers, fifteen months in prison and a fine of $5,000; Moritz Stack von Goltzheim, a real estate and insurance broker, six months in jail and $1,000 fine; Louis T. Hengstler, an admiralty lawyer and professor in the University of California and in Hastings Law College, a fine of $5,000; Bernard Manning, a real estate, insurance and employment agent in San Diego, nine months in jail and a fine of $1,000; and J. Clyde Hizar, a former city attorney in Coronado and assistant paymaster in the United States Navy, one year's imprisonment and a fine of $5,000. These gentlemen constituted the so-called "shipping group" which was intimately concerned with the affairs of theAnnie Larsenand theMaverick.

Dr. Chakravarty, who had been delegated by no less a personage than Zimmermann of Berlin to handle all Indian intrigue in America, received a crushing sentence of sixty days in jail and a fine of $5,000. Bhagwan Singh, the "poet of the revolution," was sentenced to eighteen months in the penitentiary; Taraknath Das, the author and lecturer, to twenty-two months' imprisonment;Gobind Behari Lal, the University of California student, to ten months in jail. The smaller fry of the University of California-Ghadrgroup were disposed of as follows: Nandekar to three months in jail, Ghoda Ram to eleven months, Sarkar, who had been in Japan with Gupta, to four months, Munshi Ram (of theGhadrstaff) to sixty days, Imam Din to four months, Nerajan Das to six months, Singh Hindi to nine months, Santokh Singh to twenty-one months in the penitentiary, Gopalm Singh to one year and a day, and Nidhan Singh to four months.

Dr. Chakravarty

Dr. Chakravarty (on the right), the accredited agent of Ger-many in the Hindu-German intrigues in America. Withhim is Ernest Sekunna, also a German agent,arrested with Chakravarty

Those defendants who remained had not been allowed at large on bail, thanks to the vigilance of Preston. Yet in spite of all precautions, the proceedings frequently threatened to get out of control. The United States had been at war for a year; the Federal Court was trying both alien enemies of military status and alien enemies who had engaged in and stood convicted of conspiracy, as well as conspirators against the rule of Britain in India who had revolution quite definitely in mind. Great Britain, for six months before the trial began, had been our ally and, in spirit at least, a traitor to Great Britain was a traitor to the United States. In spirit, but not in the letter of the law: the worst punishment which any existing statutes could impose on any singledefendant found wholly and completely guilty of the charge wastwo years' imprisonment and a fine of $10,000. For such conviction, and for such punishment of the United States' military enemies, the prosecution clambered about through the tangle of civil procedure; we had been six months at war and laws had not been supplied to facilitate the swift justice due such enemies, nor have laws been supplied as this is written. More than eighty "court days" were consumed, the shorthand reporting alone cost more than $35,000. A court commissioner released four important witnesses "for want of evidence." (One of them was indicted in New York and the commissioner was himself dismissed.) Gupta, arrested in New York, was released on bail and swiftly fled across the Mexican border to continue his propaganda. Trying as the case was to all who were concerned in it, expeditiously as it was handled by the authorities, and informative as it proved to be, it was monumental in its confession that civil courts cannot act with the warning vigor and speed made necessary by war conditions.

The evidence introduced pointed clearly to the conclusion that the German-Hindu plot, complex as it is to us as critics, was unfruitful even to Berlin. Perhaps its very breadth made it awkward to manage. Nearly four years of warpassed, and there was no mutiny in India. The stewards of the Indian domain knew anxious moments, but they found some solace in the realization that half way around the world, in the United States, there was a pair of eyes to watch every pair of mischievous hands, and that the conspiracy directed against the Orient could not take effect while those eyes were open.

It requires no special gift of prophecy to predict that secret conspiracies will continue unless those eyes are more vigilant than ever. The United States Attorney announced as the conspirators were being sentenced that he felt that the court might well instruct their dark associates to "cut out their propaganda," and that theirGahdrpresses were even then turning out "barrels and bales of seditious literature." To this Judge Van Fleet gravely responded:

"The people are going to take the law into their own hands, as much as we regret it. The citizens of this country are going to suppress manifestations hostile to our allies."

FOOTNOTE:[5]TheMaverickwas lost in a typhoon off the Philippines in August, 1917.

[5]TheMaverickwas lost in a typhoon off the Philippines in August, 1917.

Huerta arrives in New York—The restoration plot—German intrigue in Central America—The Zimmermann note—Sinn Fein—Sir Roger Casement and the Easter Rebellion—Bolo Pacha in America and France—A warning.

Germany learned during President Roosevelt's administration that the Monroe Doctrine was not to be tampered with. The United States stood squarely upon a policy of "hands off Latin America." But both commercial and diplomatic Germany were attracted by the bright colors of the somewhat kaleidoscopic political condition of the Central and South American nations. In political confusion, Mexico, at the outbreak of war, led all the rest. This suited Germany's purpose perfectly—provided that at least one faction in Mexico might be susceptible to her influence. The first three years of war proved to the satisfaction of the most skeptical that Mexican unrest would trouble the United States, andit was upon this theory that Germany long before 1914 baited her hook for Mexico.

Propagandists in our neighbor republic added fuel to the already brisk flame of native hostility to the Yankee. A considerable German commercial colony grew up, assimilated the language and customs of Mexico, and bade fair to be a strong competitor in the development of the huge natural resources waiting there for foreign capital. By 1914 Germany had evidently expected to be in a position sufficiently strong to enlist Mexico on her side in case the United States gave trouble. The reader will recall that Admiral von Hintze in the summer of 1914 had recommended Captain von Papen for a decoration for having organized a fair military unit of the Germans in Mexico. That same summer, however, saw Mexico with troubles of her own, and German efforts against the United States through Mexico had to be postponed.

Early in 1914 General Huerta, an unscrupulous, powerful and dissolute factionist, had executed acoup d'etatwhich placed him in the president's chair. He at once advertised for bids. The United States had no intention of protecting him, and in order to stop at its source any trouble which might prove too attractive to a foreign power, placed an embargo upon the shipmentof American arms into Mexico. The American fleet was despatched to Vera Cruz to see that the order was carried out. The steamshipYpiranga, with a cargo of arms, succeeded in eluding the fleet, and under orders from the German admiral, and the direction of Karl Heynen, the arms were landed.

Huerta had promised the presidency to Felix Diaz. In order to get him out of the way he sent Diaz to negotiate a Japanese understanding. The United States gently diverted Señor Diaz from his mission. Huerta began to lose the grip he held; three other factionists, Villa, Carranza and Zapata, each at the head of an army, were aiming at his head, and shortly before the world went to war the old rogue fled to Barcelona.

There Rintelen negotiated with him in February, 1915, and out of their conferences grew a plan to restore him to the Mexican presidency. This plan would have meant war between Mexico and the United States, which was precisely what von Rintelen and his Wilhelmstrasse friends desired: American forces would have to be mobilized at the Rio Grande, and American munitions, destined for the Allies, would have to be commandeered and diverted to Mexico.

The aged general arrived in New York in April, and was interviewed and photographed.He told the public through the newspapers that he proposed to acquire an estate on Long Island and the public considered it not inauspicious that the veteran warrior should have come to pass the remainder of his stormy life in the world's most peaceful country. Fortunately for the peace of the United States not every one believed him.

Within a week of his arrival von Rintelen slipped into New York. He placed in the Havana branch of the Deutsches Bank and in banks in Mexico City some $800,000 to Huerta's credit, and within a short time the political jackals who lived on foreign subsidy began to prick up their ears. Von Papen and Boy-Ed had made trips to the Mexican border, arranging through their consular agents in the Mexican towns across the river the mobilization of Germans in Mexico, the storing of supplies and ammunition, and the deposit of funds in banks at Brownsville, El Paso, San Antonio and Douglas. Not all Mexicans in the United States were Huertistas, however, and one Raphael Nieto, Assistant-Secretary of Finance to Carranza, was quite as eager to follow Huerta's activities as were the agents of the United States. The Carranzistas joined forces with the Secret Service and found out that the plot had already begun to develop.

During the month of May, Huerta frequentlymet a member of the German Embassy at the Hotel McAlpin. Von Rintelen was clever enough not to negotiate in person, but he dined frequently with the Embassy member. Much of what had occurred at these conferences in the McAlpin was known to government agents, who had been concealed where they could take notes on the conversation. On June 1, 1915, General Huerta, with Jose Ratner, his "financial adviser," held a conference in the Holland House with a former Huertista cabinet minister, a son of the Mexican general, Angeles, and certain other personages who purposed to take part in the revolution for the sake of this world. One of the men present was a Carranza spy, and through him it became known that Huerta outlined that he had ten millions of dollars for immediate use in a plot to restore him to his former position, twice that sum in reserve, and that more would be forthcoming if necessary. Arms and ammunition, he said, would be shipped into Mexico secretly, supplies would be accumulated at certain border towns, and envoys had already been sent to incite desertion from the armies of Carranza and Villa.

Rintelen did not know that the Carranzistas had sold out to the authorities. Rintelen had already purchased some $3,000,000 worth of arms and cartridges, and he was prepared to see theenterprise to a successful conclusion. Incidentally he was quietly supplying six other Mexican factions with funds in case Huerta's measure of success should prove too intoxicating.

Because he was a figure of considerable international notoriety and indisputable news interest, the press had been following Huerta's movements with strict attention. Affairs at the border were not reassuring and there persisted the feeling that Huerta in the United States held promise of Huerta once more in Mexico. In July, his agent, Ratner, issued the following frank though apparently ingenious statement:

"General Huerta and those of us associated with him are confident that the whole Mexican situation will be cleared up within ninety days. We believe that to rule the country is a one-man job. And in that time we expect that one man to come forward and unite the country. General Huerta does not care to indicate the man he has in mind, but he is from our viewpoint a true patriot, and naturally that excludes both Carranza and Villa.

"General Huerta may or may not return to Mexico some day, and may or may not hold office there again. At present he is giving himself up wholly to an agreeable and home life in this city (New York)."

Whether or not General Huerta was to "return to Mexico some day" depended upon the temper of the United States. He knew that when he authorized the statement. He did not know—or else he was incredibly bold—that the Government was in possession of the whole story, and that orders had been issued from the highest source in the country not to let him return. One day in the late summer he slipped away, ostensibly to visit the San Francisco Exposition. Government agents shadowed him and let him make his own pace. He took the southern route, and traveled so quietly that his flight was not publicly marked until he had passed through Kansas City. As he approached the border he became as eager as a boy at the prospect of his 'return from Elba'; then, as he was almost in sight of the soil from which he had been exiled, he was arrested on a technical charge and jailed.

In August Rintelen fled the country. TheProvidence Journalhad just published an irritating charge that Boy-Ed was carrying on negotiations with Mexico; the German Embassy denied the charge, although Boy-Ed with his knowledge of Mexico had assisted ably in the plot; and the excitement of official interest in Huerta's recent connections made von Rintelen nervous. When he was captured at Falmouthby the British, his man-Friday, Andrew V. Meloy, confessed that he had inadvertently tipped over the plot when he had innocently telephoned a Carranzista to find out, for safety sake, whether the Carranza party suspected Huerta. It was this Carranzista who made a few inquiries of his own, and succeeded in planting the spy in the Holland House meeting.

The aged general, although he was transferred to a more comfortable prison, took his confinement bitterly. His dream had been bright indeed, and it had been bluntly interrupted. As the autumn came on his health showed signs of failing, and his career of dissipation began to total the final reckoning. The illness became grave, and after two surgical attempts to save his life, he died in January, 1916, heartbroken.

Von Eckhart, the minister to Mexico City, was to Mexico what Bernstorff was to the United States and he employed faithfully the familiar tactics of his superior: revolution, editorial propaganda, filibustering and double dealing. In the fall of 1916 the fine German hand could be seen prompting a note sent by Mexico to the United States urging an embargo on the shipment on munitions and foodstuffs to the warring nations (Mexico had neither foodstuffs nor munitions to supply). And in December, 1916, Eckhart wasrobbed of the achievement of a conspiracy of fantastic proportions.

In order to appreciate the fantasy, one must bear in mind the temperament of a Central American. Eckhart and his colleague, Lehmann, German minister to Guatemala, proposed to harness that temperament to a German wagon and drive the Latin republics to the formation of "the United States of Central America," which presumably would have borne a Prussian eagle in the field of its ensign.

Carranza disliked Cabrera of Guatemala; so, too, did Dr. Irias, a Nicaraguan liberal. Certain factions in Honduras disapproved of their president; certain factions in Guatemala could be counted on to support revolution against Cabrera; Dr. Irias, the defeated candidate, disliked Emiliano Chammorra, the President of Nicaragua, enormously. What more natural than that they combine forces and with German money and arms kindle not one revolution but a series of them, with an invasion thrown in for good measure? Accordingly they conferred with a Salvadorean politician, a Cuban revolutionist, and an associate of the Costa Rican minister of war. The cast complete, they planned to assemble revolutionary forces, with German military advisers, on the coast of Salvador. Using Salvador as abase, attacks were to be made upon Nicaragua and Guatemala, and at the proper time Carranza was to invade Guatemala from the north. Colombia's services were to be enlisted by the promise of restoration of the Republic of Panama—originally a Colombian province. As soon as the combined revolutionaries had succeeded in overthrowing their governments, they were to form the United States of Central America, with Irias as president, and William of Hohenzollern as counsel.

Our levity is pointed not at the Central American temperament and political instability, but rather towards the grotesquely serious objective of the German plotters. If their military forces had been Prussian shock troops they would certainly have succeeded. The use of a Mexican gunboat to transport German officers with an airplane and wireless apparatus from Mexico to Salvador exposed the plan. President Cabrera of Guatemala had a small but effective force of thirty thousand men, and a well-equipped artillery, armed—and he was prepared for attack from either frontier. He also enjoyed the confidence of Washington, and he informed Washington at once what was afoot. The answer arrived presently in the shape of the American fleet, on a peaceful expedition to survey the Gulfof Fonseca, its newly acquired Nicaraguan naval base. The revolutions failed for want of revolutionists, the German enterprise failed for want of revolutions, and of the conspirators only one, Tinoco of Costa Rica, succeeded in capitalizing the unrest by acoup d'etatwhich made him president. The plot never reached maturity in Colombia or Panama.

Before dismissing it from consideration, however, it is worth a moment's analysis. With any degree of success it would have distracted the United States, and perhaps have involved her marine corps as well as her navy. It contained possibilities of war between Mexico and the United States. It projected a blow at the Panama Canal. It concerned a territory in which commercially as well diplomatically the United States had definite concern and in which Germany had already shown a greedy interest. Incidentally it reveals—in its offer to Colombia—the same diplomatic technique as that which was shortly to startle the United States into the last step towards war, the so-called "Zimmermann note."

At 3A. M.(Berlin time) on January 19, 1917, the following message was sent by wireless to Count von Bernstorff from the Foreign Office:

"Berlin, January 19, 1917."On the first of February we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of this it is our endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America."If this is not successful we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and together shall make peace. We shall give general financial support and it is understood that Mexico is to recover the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement."You are also instructed to inform the president of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time offer to mediate between Germany and Japan."Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few months."(Signed)Zimmermann."

"Berlin, January 19, 1917.

"On the first of February we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of this it is our endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America.

"If this is not successful we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and together shall make peace. We shall give general financial support and it is understood that Mexico is to recover the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement.

"You are also instructed to inform the president of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time offer to mediate between Germany and Japan.

"Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few months.

"(Signed)Zimmermann."

This document was decoded from the official dictionary cipher and laid in the hands of President Wilson almost immediately following the rupture of diplomatic relations. It was made public on February 28, when the public temper was at whitest heat. Mexico did not repudiate the note at once, and four days later despatched a denial of having received any such proposalas Zimmermann had suggested. Eckhart was forcing Carranza's hand with the lure of the projected Central American enterprise already outlined. (Eckhart had had Carranza so completely under his influence at one time that when the United States despatched to Mexico a friendly note warning her of the presence of German submarines in the Gulf, Mexico retorted—at Eckhart's literal dictation—that the United States might do well to ask the British Navy why it did not prevent German undersea craft from approaching the Americas.) The month of March fled by, and America went to war; since that date no official expression except one of praise for Mexico's attitude of amiable neutrality has issued from Washington.

Just as the proximity of Mexico to the United States had for a number of years past carried with it the possibility, almost the certainty, of differences between the two countries, rising out of the temperamental differences of their peoples, so for a longer period had Ireland and England suffered for their contiguity. It is a truism to remark that the Irishman cherishes his national grievances, but that characteristic accounts for a further phase of German intrigue on American soil. Hatred of England sent many thousands of Irish to the United States in the past fiftyyears. They found it a country to their liking, which England was not, and although they had become indissolubly attached to their adopted land, there were in America in 1914 (and there are in 1918) numerous Irish who had no dearer wish than that England come off second best in the great war. Allies after Germany's own heart they were, therefore. They had been cultivated long since: in 1909, when plans were being made for a centenary celebration in 1914 of the peace that had reigned between the United States and England, German-American and Irish-American interests began to raise a structure of their own, exploiting the prominence which certain Germans, such as Franz Sigel and Carl Schurz, had enjoyed in the construction of the nation. The programme of these interests included the erection of elaborate memorials over the graves of prominent German Americans, the dissemination of legends of German heroes in America, and more practically the frustrating of the projected Peace Centenary.

Many of the organizations thus united for a practical purpose found a clearing-house in the American Truth Society, of which Jeremiah O'Leary was the head. Although the Centennial Celebration itself was rudely interrupted by the advent of war, the German-Irishacquaintanceship was nourished by the German propagandists in America. They observed with pleasure the circulation by the Clan-na-Gael of cards informing the Irish in America that troops from Erin were being assigned to the most dangerous posts and the bloodiest attacks and subjected to the most severe enemy fire in France, and that the hated British were dragging Irish boys from their homes to fill up the ranks. Between September, 1914, and April, 1915, funds amounting to $80,000 for the purchase of arms and the printing of seditious papers and leaflets were forwarded from America to Dublin banks, and then mysteriously were withdrawn. An inflammatory publication known asBull, published by O'Leary, and not barred from the mails until September, 1917, went broadcast over the United States, inciting bitterness against England, and found a greedy circle of readers in the German-American population. John Devoy, a Sinn Feiner of standing in America, fanned the flame with a newspaper known as theGaelic American, published in New York, and it is this American-printed sheet which furnished the Irish revolutionists with material for a part of the plot which they were preparing for fruition in the year 1916.

Jeremiah A. O'Leary

In 1916 Sir Roger Casement, an Irish knight, made his way into Germany. He was permittedto visit the prison camp at Limburg where some 3,000 Irish prisoners of war were quartered, and he moved about among them attempting to obtain enlistments in an army which was to effect a coup in Dublin to overthrow the British government in the Castle and to proclaim an Irish Republic. He circulated numerous copies of theGaelic Americanto arouse the men. He was variously received. Some of the prisoners held their release worth treason—but only fifty-odd. The greater majority rejected Sir Roger's offer, and some even chose to curse and spit at the suggestion that they break their oaths of allegiance to Great Britain. He succeeded, however, in enlisting German financial assistance, and in early April, 1916, a cargo of captured Russian arms and ammunition was forwarded to Kiel and loaded into the German auxiliary steamshipAud.

Some 11,000 revolutionists were in a state of mental if not martial mobilization in Ireland by this time. There were in Dublin some 825 rifles. But so cleverly were the volunteers' orders passed from member to member, that Sir Matthew Nathan, Under-secretary of State for Ireland, testified later that he did not know until three days before the outbreak occurred that German interests were coöperating. Evidently, however, sympathizers in America knew it full well, for inthe von Igel papers captured in von Papen's office in New York was found the following message to von Bernstorff:

"New York, April 17, 1916."Judge Cohalan requests the transmission of the following remarks:"The revolution in Ireland can only be successful if supported from Germany, otherwise England will be able to suppress it, even though it be only after hard struggles. Therefore, help is necessary. This should consist primarily of aerial attacks in England and a diversion of the fleet, simultaneously with Irish revolution. Then, if possible, a landing of troops, arms, and ammunition in Ireland, and possibly some officers from Zeppelins. This would enable the Irish ports to be closed against England and the establishment of stations for submarines on the Irish coast and the cutting off of the supply of food for England. The services of the revolution may therefore decide the war."He asks that a telegram to this effect be sent to Berlin."

"New York, April 17, 1916.

"Judge Cohalan requests the transmission of the following remarks:

"The revolution in Ireland can only be successful if supported from Germany, otherwise England will be able to suppress it, even though it be only after hard struggles. Therefore, help is necessary. This should consist primarily of aerial attacks in England and a diversion of the fleet, simultaneously with Irish revolution. Then, if possible, a landing of troops, arms, and ammunition in Ireland, and possibly some officers from Zeppelins. This would enable the Irish ports to be closed against England and the establishment of stations for submarines on the Irish coast and the cutting off of the supply of food for England. The services of the revolution may therefore decide the war.

"He asks that a telegram to this effect be sent to Berlin."

Presumably such a telegram was sent, although on April 17 Sir Roger, with his recruits, was at Kiel. Three days before the Berlin press bureau had authorized the issuance of a despatch through the semi-official Overseas News Agency that "political rioting in Ireland is increasing." On the same day a news item was published in Copenhagen stating that Sir Roger had been arrested inGermany to allay any suggestion that he was engaged in any other enterprise. On the afternoon of Thursday, April 20, a German submarine stuck its conning tower out of water off Tralee, on the Irish coast. Three men presently emerged, unfolded a collapsible boat, and rowed ashore in it. The three were Casement and two of his henchmen, come home to Ireland to spread the news that German arms and German aid were at hand. Off the southwest coast the patrol shipBluebellof the British Navy sighted, on Good Friday morning, a ship flying the Norwegian flag, and calling herself, in answer to theBluebell'shail, theAud, out of Bergen for Genoa. Under the persuasive effect of a warning shot from theBluebelltheAudfollowed her as far as Daunt's Rock, where her crew of German sailors set fire to her, hoisted the German naval ensign, abandoned ship, and then surrendered under fire. TheAudsank, carrying the arms for Irish revolution with her. Sir Roger was arrested in hiding, and on Easter Sunday Dublin broke out in revolt. On Monday a cipher message reached O'Leary, telling him of the uprising hours before the British censor permitted the news story to cross the ocean. John Devoy burst out in a heated charge in theGaelic Americanthat—

"The sinking of the German ship loaded witharms and ammunition ... was the direct result of information treacherously given to the British Government by a member of the Washington Administration ... Wilson's officials obtained the information by an act of lawlessness, a violation of international law and of American law, committed with the deliberate purpose of helping England, and it was promptly put at the disposal of the British Government...."

This charge was denied at once from Washington. The specific "violation of international law and of American law" to which Devoy referred was generally supposed to be the seizure of the von Igel papers, for the accusation is the same as that which von Igel made when his office was raided. How Devoy knew that the von Igel papers contained information of the proposed expedition from Kiel to Ireland is a question which Devoy has no doubt had to answer to the Government of the United States since then. He and O'Leary, with Dennis Spellisy, who had collected large sums of money for the Sinn Fein cause, were loud in their protests against the execution of the ringleaders of the revolt on May 3rd, which put a sharp end to the endeavors of the revolutionists. That O'Leary was known to the German system of secret agents in America needs no further substantiation. To credit himwith generalship, however, would be doing him too great honor and the Irish-American population injustice; O'Leary was bitterly pro-German, but so were hundreds of more prominent and influential Irish-Americans: one could find the names of several New York Justices upon the roster of the Friends of Peace. Sir Roger Casement petitioned for a Philadelphia lawyer at his trial for treason, and Sir Roger's sister attempted unsuccessfully to reach President Wilson, through his secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, in an effort to bring about intercession in the doomed knight's favor. (Mr. Tumulty was approached more than once by persons whom he had reason to suspect of alloyed motives who desired to "set forth a case to the President.") The link between the old country and the new is close, the future of Ireland is one of more than usual interest and concern to the United States, and the fact that the great majority of Irish-Americans have subordinated their insular convictions to the greater conviction of loyalty to their adopted land is at once a fine augury of ultimate solution of the Irish question, and a dignified rebuke to the efforts which Germany has made through America to exploit Ireland.

On Washington's Birthday, 1916, there came toNew York one who posed as a French publisher and publicist. He brought excellent letters of recommendation, and was well supplied with money. He was personable, and well sponsored, and he was correspondingly well received. Within a month he left the United States for France, with appropriate expressions of his appreciation of American hospitality.

In April, 1918, that same man faced a French firing squad, guilty of having attempted to betray his country, and of having traded with the enemy.

He was Paul Bolo Pacha, Paul Bolo by common usage, Pacha by whatever right is vested in a deposed Khedive to confer titles. Born somewhere in the obscurity of the Levant, he came as a boy to Marseilles. He was successively barber's-boy, lobster-monger, husband of a rich woman who left him her estate, then café-owner and wine-agent. Then he drifted to Cairo, and into the good graces of Abbas Hilmi, the Khedive. Abbas was deposed by the British in 1914 as pro-German, and went to Geneva; Bolo followed.

Charles F. Bertelli, the correspondent in Paris of the Hearst newspapers, naïvely related before Captain Bouchardon, a French prosecutor, the circumstances of his acquaintanceship with Bolo, which led to the latter's cordial reception at thehands of Hearst when he arrived in New York. " ... Jean Finot, Directeur ofLa Revue, ... had sent him a letter of introduction to Mr. Hearst and had requested me to accredit him with Mr. Hearst. He had said to me: 'Occupy yourself with the matter, Bolo has very great political power; he is the proprietor ofLe Journaland it would be well that Hearst should know him.' ... I made the voyage with Bolo.... I spoke of Bolo to Hearst and the latter said to me, 'If he is a great proprietor of French newspapers, I should be very glad to....' As a compliment to Hearst, Bolo gave a grand dinner at Sherry's.... Bolo had two personal guests: Jules Bois and the German, Pavenstedt...." We need draw on Bertelli no further than to introduce the same Adolph Pavenstedt in whose offices Papen and Boy-Ed had sought refuge at the outbreak of war in 1914; Adolph Pavenstedt, head of the banking house of G. Amsinck & Co., through which the attachés paid their henchmen for attempts at the Welland Canal, the Vanceboro bridge, and at America's peace in general. Bolo had made Pavenstedt's acquaintance in Havana in 1913.

Four days after he landed in New York, and before the Hearst dinner (which was incidental to the plot) Bolo had progressed with hisnegotiations to betray France to a point where von Bernstorff sent the following message to the Foreign Office in Berlin:

"Number 679, February twenty-sixth."I have received direct information from an entirely trustworthy source concerning a political action in one of the enemy countries which would bring about peace. One of the leading political personalities of the country in question is seeking a loan of one million seven hundred thousand dollars in New York, for which security will be given. I was forbidden to give his name in writing. The affair seems to me to be of the greatest possible importance. Can the money be provided at once in New York? That the intermediary will keep the matter secret is entirely certain. Request answer by telegram. A verbal report will follow as soon as a trustworthy person can be found to bring it to Germany."Bernstorff."

"Number 679, February twenty-sixth.

"I have received direct information from an entirely trustworthy source concerning a political action in one of the enemy countries which would bring about peace. One of the leading political personalities of the country in question is seeking a loan of one million seven hundred thousand dollars in New York, for which security will be given. I was forbidden to give his name in writing. The affair seems to me to be of the greatest possible importance. Can the money be provided at once in New York? That the intermediary will keep the matter secret is entirely certain. Request answer by telegram. A verbal report will follow as soon as a trustworthy person can be found to bring it to Germany.

"Bernstorff."

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