During these days of intense fighting on the French front the British had not been marking time, but they had far less to contend against than their valorous allies. The French had to bear the brunt of German fury throughout the week. The whole French line from Verdun to St. Quentin in this period had been subjected to almost continuous attacks. At the cost of enormous losses that had not been exceeded during the war, save at Verdun in the previous year, the Germans had only gained a slight advance on a front of 2,000 feet, at the foot of the slope leading to the Chemin-des-Dames between Vauclerc and Craonne. The French now held all the important heights of the Aisne which Hindenburg had declared were impregnable.
The German High Command had given orders that the French positions on the heights must be captured at all hazards. Throughout the night of July 21, 1917, the high plateaus north of Craonne were shelled by German guns of the heaviest caliber. An attack was made at daybreak from Hurtebise to the east of Craonne. The two plateaus to the north, called the Casemates and Californie positions, are three-cornered in shape, projecting toward the north and joined by a narrow saddle. The approach to this is not so abrupt from the north as that to the plateaus themselves. The French artillery fire broke up the attack between Hurtebise and the Casemates Plateau before it could develop.
Assemblages of German troops north of Ailette were dispersed with heavy losses by the concentrated fire from French batteries. German attacks east of the plateaus led to violent hand-to-hand conflicts in which the Germans fought with great courage, but were unable to make gains. Throughout the day the battle raged, the Germans hurling great masses of men against the French lines, and, thrown back with heavy losses, again and again renewed the attacks. On the Californie Plateau after repeated repulses they succeeded in gaining a foothold, but were only able to hold it for a short time, when the French threw them back in an assault that laid many a German low.
Since the 10th of the month the British had done little but repel counterattacks, but they had won a little useful ground east of Monchy, close to the coast, and around Ypres and Lens theirs and the German batteries were busy day and night. From prisoners captured by the British it was learned that the Germans were suffering from the great wastage of men. Out of one division west of Lens it was stated that between seventy and eighty men had been buried every day for some weeks past. The British losses were also considerable, but their guns did more shooting, and the enemy's casualties were consequently much heavier. The British continued to hold the upper hand in air combats, few German machines being encountered. During July 23-24, 1917, British airmen dropped between four and five tons of bombs on enemy aerodromes, ammunition depots, and railway junctions with good results. North and east of Ypres the British made several raids during the 24th, capturing 114 prisoners, including two officers.
On the French front General Pétain, commander in chief of the French armies, found time while the battle was still raging to review the famous division whose four regiments had won the highest honors at Verdun, Nieuport, on the Somme, and in the Champagne. The troops which had been fighting for three years showed outwardly no sign of the terrible ordeals they had undergone, holding themselves proudly erect as they passed the saluting base amid the strains of military music and flying colors. General Pétain, who believed in treating his men as if they were his own sons, commended their bravery and thanked them in the name of the Republic for the brilliant example they had set to the other soldiers of France.
The loss of the plateaus north of Craonne continued to rankle in the mind of the German command, and repeated efforts were made to recover these precious positions. In the night of July 25, 1917, a ferocious attack was made on the French lines on a front of about two miles from La Bovelle Farm to a point east of Hurtebise. In the face of a murderous fire from the French artillery that wrought havoc in the advancing masses the Germans pressed on and succeeded in occupying portions of French first-line trenches south of Ailles. Repeated attacks made on Hurtebise Farm broke down under French artillery fire. Attacks on Mont Haut, following an intense bombardment that lasted all night long, failed to make any progress. North of Auberive the French carried out a successful operation during which they penetrated German trenches and continued their advance.
In Flanders in the night of the 25th the town of Nieuport, which had been in ruins since the first year of the war, was bombarded by the Germans with guns of every caliber. The British guns replied with equal violence, so that for miles around the air vibrated day and night and the ground shook with tremors.
East of Monchy the Germans resumed action, 400 attacking with flame throwers the line of British trenches that had already been smashed by artillery fire, and succeeded in occupying some posts of no great importance.
In the Champagne the sorely tried French troops were allowed no respite by the Germans, who would not renounce their hope of regaining the important positions on the heights. In the night of July 26, 1917, no less than five attacks were made by the Germans in the vicinity of the height south and west of Moronvilliers, but all broke down under fire of the French artillery. East of Auberive, several groups of Germans led by an officer tried a surprise attack which led to close fighting and from which hardly one German soldier escaped unwounded. The ground around the French position was strewn with dead, including that of the officer who led the attack.
From the Flemish coast southward past Lens the great gun duel between the British and Germans continued without ceasing. The Germans had brought up vast stores of ammunition and poured shells into Nieuport, Ypres, and Armentières, and for miles around sprayed the country at large with the hope of smashing hidden British batteries. To this wide sweeping storm of fire the British were replying with far greater violence, sending two shells to the enemy's one, a rivalry of destruction that had not been surpassed on any previous occasion since the war began. Except for occasional raids the infantry remained quiescent under this gunnery. North of Arras and east of Ypres the British raids netted a considerable number of prisoners and machine guns. The fury of the British fire was not without effect on the generally stolid and imperturbable Germans, for at Fontaine-les-Croisilles they ran away without firing a shot when a British raiding party rushed forward to attack.
The three weeks' bombardment in Belgium closed on the morning of July 31, 1917, when British and French troops launched an attack on a gigantic scale along a front of nearly twenty miles from Dixmude on the north to Warneton on the south. The Allies won a notable victory, capturing in the first day of the battle ten towns and over 5,000 prisoners, including ninety-five officers. The attack began a little before 4 o'clock in the morning, just when the first faint light of dawn was breaking, German trenches had been either leveled or were completely wiped out by the preceding bombardment. The shelling increased in violence as the troops of the Allies left their positions and rushed forward to attack. The first and second German lines were carried almost without opposition, but at some points the Germans held up the advance with machine guns from their rear positions. These the British stormed, and lost considerable men in the operation, but they were comforted with the thought that the German losses were much heavier.
As a result of the day's operations the British had advanced their line on a front of over fifteen miles from La Basse Ville, on the river Lys, to Steenstraete on the river Yser.
The French troops on the extreme left and protecting the left flank of the British forces captured the village of Steenstraete, and rushing on penetrated the German defenses to a depth of nearly two miles. Having won all their objectives at an early hour in the day, the French continued to advance, occupying Bixschoote and capturing German positions to the southeast and west of the village on a front of nearly two and a half miles. In the center and on the left British divisions swept the enemy from positions to a depth of two miles, and secured crossings at the river Steenbeek, thus gaining all their objectives. In carrying out this attack British troops captured two powerful defensive systems by assault, and won against fierce opposition the villages of Verlorenhoek, Frezenberg, St. Julien, and Pilken, together with farms that had been transformed into fortresses and other strongholds in neighboring woods.
The victory of the Allies was more remarkable because of unfavorable weather conditions. The day was marked by heavy rain and the sky was full of heavy sodden clouds, so that observation was well nigh impossible for the airmen and kite balloons. Fortunately on the night before the attack the rain held off and the many thousands of British troops who occupied mudholes and shell holes close to the enemy lines had reason to bless the dark since they had a better chance of escaping observation. But this was not always possible, for the German flares and rockets often revealed their position and a shell would pass over them or smash among them, killing some and maiming others. Those who escaped these death-dealing visitors were forced to maintain silence, lest they betray their position. During the night the German aviators were more active than during the day and many times their bombs found a mark among the British soldiers crouching on the ground. It was a terrible ordeal through which these brave fellows had to pass, the forced inaction was maddening, and they were all the more eager to fight when at last the welcome signal came in the early dawn to go forward to attack.
Despite the discouraging weather conditions, which hindered observation, large squadrons of British planes led the advance against the German lines and not only maintained constant contact with the infantry, but flying low carried on a destructive warfare with their machine guns.
There were many air battles fought at a few hundred feet above the ground, but the Germans were decidedly outclassed and had to retire after they had lost six machines.
One British aviator doing patrol duty, and flying at a height of not more than thirty feet, came upon a German aerodrome on which he dropped a bomb with careful precision. As the Germans in the sheds came tumbling out, the aviator turned his machine gun on them, and circling around the field poured such a stream of fire into the kaiser's men that they scattered, leaving a number of dead on the ground.
The Germans having presently recovered, from their astonishment got a machine gun into action and came back to attack the airman, who made a dive, and when not more than twenty feet from the ground silenced their gun with his own. Then he circled the field, firing through the doors of every building he passed on the groups of men within. Leaving this scene the British airman next came upon two German officers, and his machine-gun working steadily put them to flight. A column of several hundred troops encountered after this were dispersed when he swept along the line, leaving a number of dead and wounded on the field. It was now time to return to the British lines for more ammunition and some slight repairs, but the gallant aviator encountered two German war planes that engaged him in battle. One he disabled by a well-directed shot and the other seized the opportunity to hurry from the scene.
On the Aisne front during July 31, 1917, there was violent artillery fighting south of La Royère; the French had won all their objectives and more. The German advanced trenches were filled with dead and the French captured 210 prisoners.
On the same date the Germans after heavily bombarding French lines at Cerny and Hurtebise, attacked positions east of Cerny on a front of 1,500 meters with three regiments. French counterattacks immediately carried out, drove the Germans back, their ranks seriously depleted, and the French were now enabled to advance along the whole front.
The day was calm on both sides of the Meuse, but farther south, in the right center of the French attack, after gaining Hooge village and Sanctuary Wood, their first objectives, they fought their way forward and carried the village of Westhoek, against very obstinate resistance from the enemy. In this neighborhood there was stiff fighting throughout the day, and still continued. The French had penetrated the German defenses to a depth of about a mile. A number of violent counterattacks were repulsed. South of the Zillebeke-Zandvoord road, on the extreme right, French troops at an early hour in the day had succeeded in winning all of their objectives, capturing the villages of La Basse Ville, and Hollebeke. The French claimed to have suffered few casualties in these important operations, and by nightfall of July 31, 1917, over 3,500 German prisoners had been passed behind the lines.
The German Government having industriously circulated reports that the French armies had suffered such a wastage of men that in a short time they would prove a negligible factor in the war, the French War Office announced that there were a million more troops in the fighting zone than were mustered to stem the German flood tide at the Battle of the Marne. It was also declared that the Republic had more men under arms than at any time in her history. Nearly 3,000,000 troops were in France alone, exclusive of the interior and in the colonies.[Back to Contents]
THE INTERIM
The cessation of diplomatic relations between the American and German Governments was an inevitable consequence of the latter's submarine decree abrogating the undertaking it gave in the Sussex case. The world knew it. Germany knew it. Her ambassador at Washington, Count von Bernstorff, knew it best of all, and accepted his dismissal in a fatalistic spirit. The rupture had to come. He had done his best to avert it, and his best had availed nothing.
The long-feared break having become a reality, the American people looked wide-eyed at the unexampled international situation. What now? When two parties enter into a bargain and one breaks it, there is usually a parting of the ways, a personal conflict perhaps, when there is not also a lawsuit. But no court could settle the differences between the United States and Germany. The nation squarely faced the fact that the two countries were officially not on speaking terms; they were on the dangerous ground of open enmity, when the least provocation would be as a spark to a powder magazine. Sparks there were in plenty; but the explosion waited. President Wilson guarded the magazine. He waited an "overt act" before giving up his vigil and letting events take their course.
Germany began her announced ruthless submarine warfare against neutral shipping with caution. Apparently she was loath to precipitate matters by acting in the letter and spirit of the new decree which warned that any neutral vessel found in the new danger zone "perished." On February 3, 1917, when the decree was in operation, one of her submarines encountered an American freighter, the Housatonic, off the Scilly Isles, which came within the proscribed area. It sank her, but first gave warning, permitted the crew to take to the boats, and actually towed the boats ninety miles toward land. A British patrol vessel then appeared; the submarine fired a signal to attract its attention and vanished under water, leaving the patrol vessel to rescue the Housatonic's crew. According to the new order given the submarines the Housatonic ought to have been sunk without warning.
This unwonted chivalry looked promising; but it was deemed to be merely an act of grace extended to neutral vessels on the high seas which had left their home ports before the date (February 1, 1917) when the new policy of ruthlessness went into effect. It was not repeated.
No such shrift was accorded British vessels, whether Americans were on board them or not. About the same time the merchantman Eavestone was sunk by a submarine, which also shelled the crew as they took to the boats. The captain and three seamen—one an American—were killed by the gunfire. This action was debated as an "overt act," but apparently the Administration did not regard isolated fatalities of this character as providing ground for a casus belli.
What came nearer to a flagrant violation of the Sussex agreement was the destruction by submarine torpedoes of the Anchor passenger liner California without warning off the Irish coast with 230 persons on board. The vessel sailed from New York for Glasgow on January 28, 1917, and its crew and passengers included a sprinkling of Americans. There were no American casualties; but attacks on passenger liners without warning, regardless of the menace to American life, formed the crux of the various crises between the United States and Germany, and the sinking of the California, as an "overt act," therefore brought the breaking point nearer and nearer. The loss of life was forty-one, thirteen passengers and twenty-eight of the crew being drowned. The vessel sank in nine minutes and the submarine made no effort to save the lives of its victims.
The loss of two British steamers, the Japanese Prince and the Mantola, sunk without warning, added to the growing indictment against Germany in the consequent jeopardizing of American lives. There were thirty American cattlemen on board the Japanese Prince. With the remainder of the crew they took to the boats, and after drifting about for several hours were saved by a passing ship. An American doctor on board the Mantola was among the latter's survivors.
The next attack on American shipping was the sinking of the Lyman M. Law, a sailing vessel loaded with lumber from Maine to Italy, by a submarine off the coast of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. The crew, seven of whom were American, were saved. There was no warning; the crew were ordered to debark, a bomb was placed on board, and the vessel was blown up and sank in flames.
The destruction of the Cunard liner Laconia, without warning, followed. Three American passengers were lost, two of them women, mother and daughter, who died from exposure in one of the boats. The vessel was torpedoed in the Irish Sea at 10.30 p. m. on February 25, 1917, and it was not until 4 o'clock the next morning that the survivors, scantily clad, were rescued in a heavy sea.
All these outrages were readily chargeable as overt acts, any single one of which could have constituted a cause for war, if the Administration was looking for one. But Germany's offenses, viewed singly, were passed over; it was their cumulative force that was providing the momentum to hostilities.
Two American freighters, the Orleans and the Rochester, left New York on February 9, 1917, without guns or contraband, bound for Bordeaux, France, and were the first craft to leave an American port after Germany issued her terrifying order condemning all neutral vessels found in the new danger zone.
Meantime the barometer at Washington was ominous. The California sinking, then the Laconia, proved how slender was the thread that held the sword of Damocles over the heads of the American people. Tension increased. "We are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst," came one official view early in the crisis. The President became detached and uncommunicative.
Germany indirectly sought to avert the consequences of her conduct. A week after the rupture in diplomatic relations Dr. Paul Ritter, the Swiss Minister, to whom she had delegated the charge of her interests in the United States, approached the State Department with an informal proposal to reopen negotiations. Secretary Lansing required him to put his request in writing, and the following memorandum was thereupon presented by Dr. Ritter on February 11, 1917:
"The Swiss Government has been requested by the German Government to say that the latter is now, as before, willing to negotiate, formally or informally, with the United States, provided that the commercial blockade against England will not be broken thereby."
Secretary Lansing's answer, made the next day, was short and to the point. He notified Dr. Ritter, under instructions from the President, that "the Government of the United States would gladly discuss with the German Government any questions it might propose for discussion were it to withdraw its proclamation of the 31st of January [1917], in which, suddenly and without previous intimation of any kind, it canceled the assurances which it had given this Government on the 4th of May last [1916], but that it does not feel that it can enter into any discussion with the German Government concerning the policy of submarine warfare against neutrals which it is now pursuing unless and until the German Government renews its assurances of the 4th of May and acts upon the assurance."
No further interchanges took place on the subject. The answer clarified the situation and disposed of doubts caused by the veil the President had thrown about the workings of his mind. It told the country that its Executive was not wavering and would brook no compromise.
Little hope prevailed in Berlin that war with the United States could be avoided, since the bait offered with a view to formulating a modus vivendi for reconciling the divergent attitudes of the two governments had failed. It was said that behind Dr. Ritter's overtures was a proposal that American vessels would be spared in order to avoid actual war if the United States assented to the continuance of the extended blockade against England. This implied that all other vessels, neutral or belligerent, were marked for destruction. However that might be, Berlin, finding its approaches repulsed, boldly denied that the German Government had been a party to initiating any overtures at all. No recession of the submarine program was thought of or proposed; no change of policy was possible In fact, this denial brought with it tidings that the periods of grace Germany granted to neutral ships entering the prohibited zones had expired and that all immunity from attack and destruction had therefore ceased. Then it developed that Dr. Ritter's overtures had been traced to pacific elements in the United States, represented by William J. Bryan, who was said to have been in league with the ex-ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, and the Washington correspondent of a Cologne newspaper, in a plan to avert hostilities. Part of this propaganda was the transmission of dispatches from Washington to the German press stating that the President's message to Congress must not be construed literally, and that there was no desire for war with Germany. The purpose of these dispatches was to prevail on Germany to abate her submarine warfare by way of convincing the United States that her new policy was not so ruthless as had been described. The pacifists knew very well that the President had no intention of yielding to half measures, and that the only course Germany could take to obtain a resumption of negotiations was the absolute withdrawal of her order revoking the Sussex pledge. The Administration resented the pacifists' activities as an attempt to undermine the uncompromising position it had taken. Their dealings with a foreign government were actually unlawful; but no action was taken.
A subsequent announcement from Berlin stated that Dr. Ritter (inspired by American pacifists) had telegraphed the German Government offering to mediate, whereupon he was told that Germany was agreeable on the terms named in the interchanges Dr. Ritter had with the State Department. As to a belief which had arisen from Dr. Ritter's action that the marine barrier maintained against Great Britain by submarines and mines had been or would be weakened out of regard for the United States or for other reasons, official Berlin (February 14, 1917) had this to say:
"Regard for neutrals prompts the clearest declaration that unrestricted war against all sea traffic in the announced barred zones is now in full effect and will under no circumstances be restricted."
The United States had spoken: "Withdraw your new submarine decree before making any proposal," it had demanded of Berlin. Germany had spoken: "Our course cannot be changed."
The situation in Washington drifted along without any definite program of future action being disclosed; but the President was not idle. He decided—though he held the power himself—to ask Congress for authority to protect American shipping on the high seas by providing merchantmen with naval guns and gunners. There was a freight congestion in Atlantic ports, due to the reluctance of American shipowners to sail their vessels without defensive armament. The President's decision was a step nearer war, for armed American vessels, on encountering German submarines, would be bound to cause hostilities, and war would be a reality. Berlin took this view. If the United States armed its merchant ships, German opinion was that the considerate submarines would be unable to save passengers and crews of the vessels they sank. Were the vessels unarmed the submarines could perform this kindly service. This sardonic hint was construed as an official warning from Germany that the arming of American vessels meant war. The Administration, however, was no longer concerned with Germany's viewpoint. It realized that so long as it permitted American ships to be held in port in fear of attack by submarines if they ventured out, its inaction would in effect be viewed as acquiescing in the German policy. Such a state of affairs, it was decided, could not be allowed to continue indefinitely.[Back to Contents]
BERLIN'S TACTICS
Before the armed neutrality stage of the prewar period was reached certain events transpired in Berlin which call for inclusion in the record.
Immediately upon the rupture of diplomatic relations the State Department notified Ambassador Gerard, who was requested to ask for his passports. About the same time the German Government acceded to a demand made by Secretary Lansing for the release of a number of Americans captured from ships sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic and taken to a German port on board one of them, the British steamer Yarrowdale. Germany had no right to hold these men as prisoners at all, since they were neutrals. Yet there was an attempt to interject their release into the international crisis as an olive branch and a concession to American feeling. The two issues were distinct; but Germany, by her subsequent action, managed to link them together.
Ambassador Gerard requested his passports on February 5, 1917, while the release of the Yarrowdale prisoners was pending. Meantime dispatches which came to Berlin from Washington via London were blamed for misleading the German Government into thinking that the United States was detaining Count von Bernstorff, and had seized the German ships, with their crews, lying in American ports. Until it received assurances regarding the "fate" of the ex-ambassador and learned what treatment was to be meted out to the "captured" crews of the German vessels, the kaiser's government detained Ambassador Gerard, his staff, a number of Americans, including newspaper correspondents, as well as the Yarrowdale men. It practically held all Americans in Germany as prisoners for a week.
In view of the readiness of the German Government to seize upon the flimsiest excuses for its manifold disgraceful deeds, permissible doubts arose as to whether it was willingly or willfully misled by the dispatches. Every courtesy was shown to the departing German Ambassador by the Washington Government; safe conduct across the ocean was obtained for him from Great Britain; and he publicly expressed his acknowledgments. As to the German vessels, there were no seizures, and the only restraints imposed on the crews were those required by the immigration laws. Whatever the motive, the detention of Ambassador Gerard was so wanton a violation of law and usage as to constitute in itself an act of war.
While Ambassador Gerard was held incommunicado in Berlin, his mail intercepted, his telephone cut off, and telegraphic facilities denied him, the German Government actually sought to parley with him by way of revising an old treaty to apply to existing conditions. Mr. Gerard, having ceased to hold ambassadorial powers after the breaking of relations, could not enter into any such negotiations; but then the German Government had never been concerned with legalities. It blandly asked him to sign a protocol, the main purpose of which was to protect Germans and their interests in the United States in the event of war.
The proposed protocol, besides containing a formal reratification of the American-Prussian treaties of 1799 and 1828 regarding mutual treatment of nationals caught in either belligerent country in case of war, provided for some remarkable additions as a "special arrangement" should war be declared.
Germans in the United States and Americans in Germany were to be entitled to conduct their businesses and continue their domicile unmolested, but could be excluded from fortified places and other military areas. Or if they chose, they were free to leave, with their personal property, except such as was contraband. If they remained they were to enjoy the exercise of their private rights in common with neutral residents. They were not to be transferred to concentration camps nor their property sequestered except under conditions applying to neutral property. Patent rights of the respective nationals in either country were not to be declared void nor be transferred to others. No contracts between Germans and Americans were to be canceled or suspended, nor were citizens of either country to be impeded in fulfilling their obligations arising thereunder. Finally Germany required that enemy merchant ships in either country should not be forced to leave port unless allowed a binding safe conduct by all the enemy sea powers.
In short, Germany asked that in the event of war her nationals and her ships and commercial interests in the United States be regarded as on a neutral footing and exempt from all military law. They were to be as free and unrestricted as in peace time.
Mr. Gerard refused to sign the protocol after he had ceased to exercise ambassadorial functions. Thereupon Count Montgelas, chief of the American department of the Foreign Office, hinted that his refusal to sign it might affect the status of Americans in Germany and their privilege of departure. The reference was to American press correspondents in Berlin, whose fate was apparently thought to weigh with American public opinion. This threat to detain newspaper representatives as supposedly important pieces on the diplomatic chessboard before war was declared brought a firm refusal from Mr. Gerard to yield to such pressure. He also expressed doubt whether the newspaper representatives could be utilized to urge acceptance of the protocol under pain of detention. Thenceforth nothing further was heard of the protocol. Germany was undoubtedly exercising duress in requiring Mr. Gerard to sign it, since his passports were withheld and a needless guard had been placed round the American Embassy.
It appeared that the protocol had also been submitted to the State Department by the Swiss Minister in Washington. Secretary Lansing finally disposed of it. In a communication to Dr. Ritter he said the United States Government refused to modernize and extend the treaties as Germany proposed, and indicated that the Government held the treaties null and void since Germany herself had grossly violated her obligations under them. The treaty of 1828, for example, contained this clause governing freedom of maritime commerce of either of the contracting parties when the other was at war:
"The free intercourse and commerce of the subjects or citizens of the party remaining neuter with the belligerent powers shall not be interrupted.
"On the contrary, in that case, as in full peace, the vessels of the neutral party may navigate freely to and from the ports and on the coasts of the belligerent parties, free vessels making free goods, insomuch that all things shall be adjudged free which shall be on board any vessel belonging to the neutral party, although such things belong to an enemy of the other.
"And the same freedom shall be extended to persons who shall be on board a free vessel, although they should be enemies to the other party, unless they be soldiers in actual service of such an enemy."
Secretary Lansing pointed out another clause of equal import in the treaty of 1799, providing:
"All persons belonging to any vessels of war, public or private, who shall molest or insult in any manner whatever the people, vessel, or effects of the other party, shall be responsible in their persons and property for damages and interests, sufficient security for which shall be given by all commanders of private armed vessels before they are commissioned."
Germany was reminded of her violations of these stipulations in strong terms. Said Secretary Lansing:
"Disregarding these obligations, the German Government has proclaimed certain zones of the high seas in which it declared without reservation that all ships, including those of neutrals, will be sunk, and in those zones German submarines have in fact, in accordance with this declaration, ruthlessly sunk merchant vessels and jeopardized or destroyed the lives of American citizens on board.
"Moreover, since the severance of relations between the United States and Germany certain American citizens in Germany have been prevented from removing from the country. While this is not a violation of the terms of the treaties mentioned, it is a disregard of the reciprocal liberty of intercourse between the two countries in times of peace and cannot be taken otherwise than as an indication of the purpose on the part of the German Government to disregard, in the event of war, the similar liberty of action provided for in Article 23 of the treaty of 1799—the very article which it is now proposed to interpret and supplement almost wholly in the interests of the large number of German subjects residing in the United States and enjoying in their persons or property the protection of the United States Government."
In addition to declining to enter into the special protocol Germany proposed, Secretary Lansing significantly added:
"The Government is seriously considering whether or not the treaty of 1828 and the revised articles of the treaties of 1785 and 1799 have not been in effect abrogated by the German Government's flagrant violations of their provisions, for it would be manifestly unjust and inequitable to require one party to an agreement to observe its stipulations and to permit the other party to disregard them.
"It would appear that the mutuality of the undertaking has been destroyed by the conduct of the German authorities."
The meaning of this passage was that as Germany was deemed to have abrogated the treaties by sinking American ships, the German vessels immured in American harbors would be under no treaty protection should war be declared, and would be immediately seized by the American Government. Germany had thus destroyed the protection they would have received in case of war.
The intimidation exercised on Ambassador Gerard to obtain his signature to the protocol and its submission by Dr. Ritter to Secretary Lansing showed that Germany was nervously concerned about safeguarding her interests in the United States and feared for the safety of her nationals in the pending crisis. Ample assurances presently came to Berlin, however, that, during the diplomatic break at any rate, the American Government would not resort to Teutonic methods. Count von Bernstorff was safe; no ships had been seized; no crews arrested; no other German persons or interests molested. Thereupon Ambassador Gerard and an entourage of some 120 Americans received their passports and left the German capital on February 10, 1917, for the United States via Switzerland and Spain.
Germany was less ready to release the Americans known as the Yarrowdale prisoners. Her Government still appeared to fear that the crews of German warships in American ports were in danger, and evidently wanted hostages at hand lest any trouble befell them at the hands of the American military authorities. Secretary Lansing demanded their release on February 3, 1917, when relations were broken. Germany assented, then withdrew her assent. A second request for their freedom and for an explanation of their continued detention was made on February 13, 1917. At this date the men had been held as prisoners of war for forty-four days contrary to international law. After being captured from Allied vessels sunk by the German raider, they were taken before a prize court at Swinemunde, when their status was determined. Neutral merchant seamen, according to Germany, must be held as prisoners of war because they had served and taken pay on armed enemy vessels. Germany disclosed for the first time that she was treating armed merchantmen as ships of war and regarded neutral seamen found on such vessels as combatants. The German raider had captured altogether 103 subjects of neutral states. They were not imprisoned because they had committed hostile acts, which would have justified their detention. They were penalized for being on enemy vessels. The American Government insisted that Germany had no right to hold any Americans as war prisoners unless they committed hostile acts. Germany had no answer to make to that contention. But she did not free them. "They will be released just as soon as we learn of the fate of the German crews in American ports," said Herr Zimmermann, Foreign Secretary.
Germany had already been assured that the crews were in no danger. The conviction grew that she meant to detain the Yarrowdale seamen as hostages pending a determination of the crisis as to peace or war. The Administration had been inclined to subordinate all collateral issues between the two countries to the major and vital one created by the submarine peril; but the plight of these seamen caused their case to become one of the chief factors in the crisis. Germany seemed to conclude that their continued detention, in view of the indignation roused in Washington by such a wanton violation of international law, to say nothing of the open insult hurled at the dignity and good faith of the United States, would only precipitate war. On February 16, 1917, came a report that the men had been released. This proved to be a false alarm. On February 26, 1917, Berlin notified that their release, although ordered "some time ago," had been deferred because an infectious disease had been discovered in their concentration camp at Brandenburg. They were consequently placed in quarantine "in the interest of neutral countries." On March 2, 1917, Dr. Ritter informed Secretary Lansing that the transfer of the American sailors to the frontier had been arranged but delayed until the quarantine ended. On March 8, 1917, they were finally released from quarantine and sent to the Swiss frontier. Members of other neutral crews were sent home through various frontier towns. All were said to have been penniless and in rags. Apart from the necessary quarantine (a Spanish doctor found typhus in the camp), the record stands as an example of Germany's gift for unscrupulous temporizing and for using procrastination as a club to hold the United States at bay when on the brink of war.
The Reichstag met shortly after Germany had compulsorily disposed of her connections with the United States. An expected address by the kaiser's Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, had been deferred until February 27, 1917, when a tardy official recognition was made of the American action.
The most deliberate official notice of the course the United States would take was served on the German Government in the President's ultimatum arising out of the torpedoing of the Sussex early in 1916. If Germany continued her ruthless sea warfare, the President warned her, "the Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether." Now the time had come for the President to go even beyond that step. The day before the Reichstag listened to the Chancellor's complaint the voice of the American President was again heard in the Capitol at Washington.[Back to Contents]
ARMED NEUTRALITY
President Wilson addressed Congress in joint session, February 26, 1917, asking authority to use the armed forces of the United States to protect American rights on the high seas. He desired to establish a state of "armed neutrality." This was not a request for a declaration of war, nor was it an act of war. It was to prepare the United States to resist what might be warlike acts by Germany.
Reviewing the maritime conditions caused by Germany's submarine order of January 31, 1917, which produced the diplomatic rupture, the President disclosed an unexpected view—that Germany's misdeeds in carrying out her new decree had not, in his opinion, so far provided the "overt act" for which the United States was waiting.
"Our own commerce has suffered, is suffering," he said, "rather in apprehension than in fact, rather because so many of our ships are timidly keeping to their home ports, than because American ships have been sunk....
"In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the actual conduct of the German submarine warfare against commerce and its effects upon our own ships and people is substantially the same that it was when I addressed you on February 3, except for the tying up of our shipping in our own ports because of the unwillingness of our shipowners to risk their vessels at sea without insurance or adequate protection, and the very serious congestion of our commerce, which has eventuated, a congestion which is growing rapidly more and more serious every day.
"This in itself might presently accomplish, in effect, what the new German submarine orders were meant to accomplish, so far as we are concerned. We can only say, therefore, that the overt act which I have ventured to hope the German commanders would in fact avoid has not occurred."
But he felt that American immunity thus far had been more a matter of happy accident than due to any consideration of German submarine commanders. Nevertheless, he pointed out, it would be foolish to deny that the situation was fraught with the gravest possibilities and dangers. Hence he sought from the Congress "full and immediate assurance of the authority which I may need at any moment to exercise."
"No doubt," he proceeded, "I already possess that authority without special warrant of law, by the plain implication of my constitutional duties and powers, but I prefer in the present circumstances not to act upon general implication. I wish to feel that the authority and the power of the Congress are behind me in whatever it may become necessary for me to do. We are jointly the servants of the people and must act together and in their spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it....
"I am not now proposing or contemplating war or any steps that need lead to it. I merely request that you will accord me by your own vote and definite bestowal the means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great people who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the rights of peace to follow the pursuit of peace in quietness and good will—rights recognized time out of mind by all the civilized nations of the world.
"I believe that the people will be willing to trust me to act with restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months, and it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas."
Even before the President addressed Congress the "overt act" had been committed by Germany. News of the sinking of the Laconia, already mentioned, was published synchronously with the delivery of his message and subjected to correction his allusion to the noncommittal of any overt act by German submarines. The President, in fact, decided later that the destruction of the Cunarder without warning and at night, in rough seas, with the loss of American lives, constituted a "clear-cut" violation of the pledge the German Government gave to the United States after the Lusitania and Sussex sinkings. But it was felt that the next step in meeting the situation now rested with Congress.
The Senate and House immediately set about framing bills conforming, as far as the President's opponents permitted, to his request. There was no time to be lost. Congress expired on March 4, 1917, by constitutional limitation and the President had delayed submitting his message until the last moment, so that Congress had only eight days to debate and agree to a measure that excited the pacifists' bitter animosity in both Houses, as well as the opposition of other legislators who feared that the authority the President sought would encroach on Congress's war-making prerogative.
In the House of Representatives the opposition dwindled to negligible proportions. Public sentiment had been stirred by the sinking of the Laconia and by certain revelations the Administration published disclosing German overtures to Mexico in the event of war, the character of which will be chronicled later. Sensitive to the public pulse, the House was eager to receive the Armed-Ship Bill when it was reported on February 28, 1917, by the Foreign Affairs Committee, which had occupied a couple of days in shaping it. A stirring debate on the bill took place the next day (March 1) under cloture rule, and before the House adjourned that night it had passed the measure by a substantial vote of 403 to 13. The bill was at once sent to the Senate, and was substituted for the Senate Committee's bill, whose provisions conferred larger powers on the President. Expecting the Senate to pass its own bill as a substitute, it was the intention of the House leaders to accept the Senate's measure when it came to them for passage. The measure, however, never passed the Senate. Through the wide latitude allowed for unlimited debate a handful of Senators opposed to any action against Germany succeeded in effectually blocking the bill. The Senate sat late into the night of February 28, 1917, and took up the Armed-Ship Bill the next day. Senator La Follette, who led the successful filibuster against the bill, objected to its consideration, and, under the rule of unanimous consent, would only allow the bill to proceed on condition that no attempt was made to pass it before the next day. A precious day was lost, which sealed the fate of the measure. The bill came before the Senate for continuous debate on March 2, 1917, when it got into a parliamentary tangle. Debate was resumed on Saturday, March 3, 1917. Only a day and a half of the session now remained. Senator Stone who, though in charge of the bill, was opposed to it, found his position untenable and surrendered its conduct to Senator Hitchcock. This course enabled him to join the opponents of the bill openly by contending for an amendment excluding munition ships from armed protection—a revival of the arms embargo he had urged before. But the main obstruction to the bill came from a group of Western senators, who balked every effort for limiting debate or setting a time for a vote. As midnight neared the Administration's supporters saw that its chances of passing before Congress expired at noon the next day, Sunday, March 4, 1917, were of the slightest, and, anxious that the country should know where they stood, these senators, to the number of seventy-five, signed a manifesto reading as follows:
"The undersigned, United States senators, favor the passage of Senate bill 8322, to authorize the President of the United States to arm American merchant vessels.
"A similar bill already has passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 403 to 13.
"Under the rules of the Senate, allowing unlimited debate, it now appears to be impossible to obtain a vote prior to noon March 4, 1917, when the session of Congress expires.
"We desire the statement entered in the record to establish the fact that the Senate favors the legislation and would pass it if a vote could be obtained."
The Senate continued sitting until the stroke of twelve noon on March 4, 1917. The President was in the Capitol receiving reports of the course of his opponents' tactics. A vote not having been reached, the Armed-Ship Bill went down to defeat, having been talked to death, and the Senate automatically adjourned with the expiration of the last session of the Sixty-fourth Congress. The bill was assured of passage, had a vote been permitted, by 75 to 12. The twelve obstructionists were Senators La Follette of Wisconsin, Norris of Nebraska, Cummins of Iowa, Stone of Missouri, Gronna of North Dakota, Kirby of Arkansas, Vardaman of Mississippi, O'Gorman of New York, Works of California, Jones of Washington, Clapp of Minnesota, Lane of Oregon—seven Republicans and five Democrats.
The situation produced an indignant protest from the President, who, in a public statement, described the termination of the session by constitutional limitation as disclosing "a situation unparalleled in the history of the country, perhaps unparalleled in the history of any modern government. In the immediate presence of a crisis fraught with more subtle and far-reaching possibilities of national danger than any other the Government has known within the whole history of its international relations, the Congress has been unable to act either to safeguard the country or to vindicate the elementary rights of its citizens."
"The Senate," he proceeded, "has no rules by which debate can be limited or brought to an end, no rules by which dilatory tactics of any kind can be prevented. A single member can stand in the way of action, if he have but the physical endurance. The result in this case is a complete paralysis alike of the legislative and of the executive branches of the Government.
"Although, as a matter of fact, the nation and the representatives of the nation stand back of the Executive with unprecedented unanimity and spirit, the impression made abroad will, of course, be that it is not so and that other governments may act as they please without fear that this Government can do anything at all. We cannot explain. The explanation is incredible. The Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.
"The remedy? There is but one remedy. The only remedy is that the rules of the Senate shall be so altered that it can act. The country can be relied upon to draw the moral. I believe that the Senate can be relied on to supply the means of action and save the country from disaster."
The new Senate of the Sixty-fifth Congress met in extraordinary session at noon on March 6, 1917, when both parties took steps to frame a revision of the rules for preventing filibustering. Both caucuses agreed upon a cloture rule empowering the Senate to bring the debate on any measure to an end by a two-thirds vote, limiting speeches to one hour each, but sixteen senators must first make the request in the form of a signed motion presented two days previously. After several hours' discussion this rule passed the Senate on March 8, 1917. Thus the right to unlimited debate, which had been regarded as the most characteristic prerogative of senators, was at last restrained after enjoying a freedom of nearly one hundred and ten years.
The recalcitrant senators who prevented the passage of the Armed-Ship Bill were the subject of bitter criticism from the press and public throughout the country, which echoed, but in much stronger terms, the President's denunciation of them. There was none to do them reverence in the United States. The only meed of praise they received came from Germany. The essence of editorial opinion in that country regarding their action, according to a Berlin message, was that "so long as there are men in the American Congress who boldly refuse to have their country involved in the European slaughter merely for the sake of gratifying Wilson's vainglorious ambition, there is hope that the common sense of the American people will assert itself and that they will not permit the appalling insanity to spread to the new world that holds the old world in a merciless grip."
The German press, like the senators whom it eulogized, was mistaken in supposing that the President had been thwarted by the failure of the Armed-Ship Bill. Certainly he remained in doubt as to his next course. He had told Congress that he believed he had the power to arm merchant ships without its authority, but did not care to act on general implication. Now he was faced with the duty of ascertaining definitely where his freedom of action lay, since Congress had impeded, instead of facilitating, his conduct of the crisis with Germany. An old act, passed in 1819, governing piracy at sea, had been unearthed, and at first sight its terms were read as preventing the President from arming merchant ships. The law advisers of the Government, Secretary Lansing and Attorney General Gregory, examined this act and decided that it was obsolete. They were of opinion that it did not apply to the existing situation. The statute forbade American merchantmen from defending themselves against the commissioned vessels of a nation with which the United States was at "amity"; but they could resist by force any attacks made on them by any other armed vessels. In short, it legalized resistance to pirates. The word "amity" pre-supposed friendly diplomatic relations as well as a normal condition of traffic and commerce on the high seas in its application to the armed vessels of other nations. The provision forbidding conflict with them by American traders was intended primarily to prevent private citizens from embarrassing the Government's foreign relations. Now it was held that Germany's denial to Americans of the rights of the high seas was inconsistent with true amity, and caused her war vessels to lose, so far as the United States was concerned, their right to immunity from attack, both under international law and under this municipal act, which was viewed as superseded and void in its application to German war craft.
This decision disposed of an obstacle which had placed the President in a dilemma. It was true he could go to Congress again; but immediate action was imperative. Armed neutrality, under the President's powers as commander in chief of the army and navy, was thereupon determined. Every merchant ship which so desired would be provided with guns and naval gunners to operate them. Foreign governments were notified of this action in an executive memorandum which read:
"In view of the announcement of the Imperial German Government on January 81, 1917, that all ships, those of neutrals included, met within certain zones of the high seas, would be sunk without any precaution taken for the safety of the persons on board, and without the exercise of visit and search, the Government of the United States has determined to place upon all American merchant vessels sailing through the barred areas an armed guard for the protection of the vessels and the lives of the persons on board."
The President meantime was also confronted with the necessity of calling the new Congress into extra session, not so much to gain its assent to armed neutrality (since he had determined to act without it), but as a war expedient to support the measures projected against Germany. Owing to the Senate filibuster the previous Congress had been unable to pass appropriations exceeding $500,000,000, more than half of which was needed for the army. The new Congress was accordingly convened, to meet on April 16, 1917.[Back to Contents]
GERMANY'S BID TO MEXICO
While Congress was in the midst of its consideration of the Armed-Ship Bill, the Administration amazed the country by revealing through the press that Germany had made overtures to Mexico for an alliance with that country in the event of war with the United States, and also sought to involve Japan.
This disclosure was due to American secret service agents, who had intercepted a communication addressed by Herr Zimmermann, the German Foreign Secretary, to Herr von Eckhardt, the German Minister at Mexico City, reading as follows: