I heard no talk then about the "base crime of starving women and children," which became their whine a year later when the knife began to cut the other way.

In 1915 it was immaterial to the ma.s.s of Germans whether America joined their enemies or not. Their training had led them to think in army corps, and they frankly and sneeringly asked us, "What could you do?" They were still in the stage where they freely applied to enemies and possible enemies the expression, "They are afraid of us." "The more enemies, the more glory," was the inane motto so popular early in the war that it was even printed on post cards.

The _Gulflight_, flying the Stars and Stripes, was torpedoed in the reign of submarine anarchy immediately inaugurated. But two can play most games, and when the British Navy made it increasingly difficult for U-boats to operate in the waters near the British Isles, the German Foreign Office and the German Admiralty began to entertain divergent opinions concerning the advisability of pus.h.i.+ng the submarine campaign to a point which would drag the United States into the war.

Only a few people in Germany know that von Bethmann-Hollweg strenuously opposed the plan to sink the Lusitania. That is, he opposed it up to a point. The advertis.e.m.e.nt from the German Emba.s.sy at Was.h.i.+ngton which appeared in American newspapers warning Americans could not have appeared without his sanction. In the last days of July, 1914, backed by the Kaiser, he had opposed the mobilisation order sufficient to cause a three days' delay--which his military opponents in German politics claim was the chief cause of the failure to take Paris--but in the case of the Lusitania he was even more powerless against rampant militarism.

For nearly a year after the colossal blunder of the Lusitania, there existed in the deep undercurrents of German politics a most remarkable whirlpool of discord, in which the policy of von Tirpitz was a severe tax on the patience of von Bethmann-Hollweg and the Foreign Office, for it was they who had to invent all sorts of plausible excuses to placate various neutral Powers.

The Kaiser after disastrously meddling with the General Staff during the first month of the war, subsequently took no active hand in military, naval and political policies unless conflicts between his chosen chieftains forced him to do so.

One striking instance of this occurred when the Wilhelmstra.s.se discovered that Was.h.i.+ngton was in possession of information in the "_Arabic_ incident" which made the official excuses palpably too thin. After the German authorities became convinced that their failure to guarantee that unresisting merchantmen would not be sunk until pa.s.sengers and crew were removed to a place of safety would cause a break with the United States, Tirpitz a.s.serted that the disadvantages to Germany from America as an enemy would be slight in comparison with the advantages from the relentless submarining which in his opinion would defeat Britain. He therefore advocated that no concessions be made to Was.h.i.+ngton. Von Bethmann-Hollweg was of the opposite opinion. A deadlock resulted, which was broken when the Kaiser summoned both men to separate and secret conferences. He decided in favour of the Chancellor, whereupon Was.h.i.+ngton received the famous "_Arabic_ Guarantees." It is highly significant that these were never made known to the German people.

Then followed six months of "frightfulness," broken pledges, notes, crises, semi-crises, and finally the great crisis _de luxe_ in the case of the _Suss.e.x_. When, a few days after my return to England from Germany, I used the expression "_Suss.e.x_ Crisis" to a leading Englishman, he expressed surprise at the term "crisis." "We did not get the impression in England that the affair was a real crisis," he said.

My experiences in Germany during the last week in April and the first four days in May, 1916, left no doubt in my mind that I was living through a crisis, the outcome of which would have a tremendous effect upon the subsequent course of the war. Previous dealings with Was.h.i.+ngton had convinced the German Government as well as the German people that the American Government would stand for anything. Thus the extraordinary explanation of the German Foreign Office that the Suss.e.x was not torpedoed by a German submarine, since the only U-boat commander who had fired a torpedo in the channel waters on the fateful day had made a sketch of the vessel which he had attacked, which, according to the sketch, was not the Suss.e.x.

The German people were so supremely satisfied with this explanation that they displayed chagrin which quickly changed to ugliness when the German Press was allowed to print enough of the news from Was.h.i.+ngton to prepare the public mind for something sharp from across the Atlantic. I have seen Berlin joyful, serious, and sad during the war; I have seen it on many memorable days; but never have I seen it exactly as on Sat.u.r.day, April 22nd, the day when the _Suss.e.x_ Ultimatum was made known through the Press. The news was headlined in the afternoon editions. The eager crowds snapped them up, stood still in their tracks, and then one and all expressed their amazement to anybody near them, "President Wilson began by shaking his fist at Germany, and ended by shaking his finger," was the way one of the President's political opponents summarised his Notes. That was the opinion in Germany. And now he had "pulled a gun." The Germans could not understand it. When they encountered any of the few Americans left in their country they either foamed in rage at them, or, in blank amazement, asked them what it was all about.

It was extremely interesting to the student of the war to see that the people really did not understand what it was all about.

Theodor Wolff, the brilliant editor of the _Berliner Tageblatt_, with great daring for a German editor, raised this point in the edition in which the Ultimatum was printed. He a.s.serted that the German people did not understand the case because they purposely had been left in the dark by the Government. He said, among other things, that his countrymen were in no position to understand the feeling of resentment in the United States, because the meagre reports permitted in the German Press never described such details as the death agonies of women and children struggling helplessly in the water.

This article in the _Tageblatt_ was the striking exception to the rest of the Press comment throughout Germany, for the German Government made one of its typical moves at this point. "To climb down or not to climb down," was a question which would take several days to decide. Public opinion was already sufficiently enraged against America to give the Government united support in case of a break, but it must be made more enraged and consequently more united. Thus on Easter Sunday the full current of hate was turned on in the German Press. President Wilson was violently attacked for working in the interest of the Allies, whom he wished to save.

Germany would not bow to this injustice, she would fight, and America, too, would be made to feel what it means to go to war with Germany. The German Press did its part to inflame a united German sentiment, and the Foreign Office, which believes in playing the game both ways when it is of advantage to do so, with characteristic thoroughness did not permit the American correspondents to cable to their papers the virulent lies, such as those in the _Tagliche Rundschau_, about the affair in general and President Wilson in particular. These papers were furthermore not allowed to leave Germany.

On the evening preceding the publication of the Ultimatum, Maximilian Harden's most famous number of the _Zukunft_ appeared with the t.i.tle "If I Were Wilson." On Sat.u.r.day morning it was advertised on yellow and black posters throughout Berlin, and was quickly bought by a feverish public to whom anything pertaining to German-American relations was of the sharpest interest. The remarkable article was directly at variance with all the manufactured ideas which had been storming in German brains for more than a year. The British sea policy was represented in a light quite different from the officially incubated German conception of it. President Wilson was correctly portrayed as strictly neutral in all his official acts. This staggered Harden's readers quite as much as his attacks on the brutal submarine policy of his country.

A careless censor had allowed "If I Were Wilson," to appear. But a vigilant Government, ever watchful of the food for the minds of its children, hastened with the usual police methods to correct the mistake. The _Zukunft_ was _beschlagnahmt_, which means that the police hastily gathered up all unsold copies at the publishers, kiosks, and wherever else they were to be found. If a policeman saw one in a man's pocket he took it away.

Why did the Government do everything in its power to suppress this article? The Government fully understood that there was nothing in it that was not true, nothing in it of a revolutionary character.

It divulged no military or naval secrets. It was a simple statement of political truths. But the German great Idea Factory in the Wilhelmstra.s.se does not judge printed matter from its truth or falsity. The forming of the public mind in the mould in which it will best serve the interests of the State is the sole consideration. While the Directors of Thought were deliberating on the relative disadvantages of a curtailment of submarine activity and America as an enemy, and the order of the day was to instill hatred, no matter how, they decided that it would be inadvisable for the people to read the true statements of Harden.

One American correspondent began to cable five thousand words of "If I Were Wilson" to his paper. The Censor stopped him after he had sent thirteen hundred. A rival correspondent, when he glanced at the article immediately after it had appeared, decided that it was more suitable for mail matter than cable matter, put it in an envelope, and actually scored a scoop over all opponents.

During the following days, when the leaders of Germany were in conference at the Headquarters of the General Staff, I travelled as much as possible to find out German sentiment. The people were intoxicated with the successes against Verdun, and were angrily in favour of a break. One German editor said to me "The Government has educated them to believe that the U-boat can win the war.

Their belief is so firm that it will be difficult for the authorities to explain a backdown to Wilson."

It was not. The Government can explain anything to the German people. The back-down came, causing sentiments which can be divided into three groups. One, "We were very good to give in to America. England would not be so good." Two, "Americans put us in a bad position. To curtail our submarine weapon means a lengthening of the war. On the other hand, to add America to the list of our enemies would lengthen the war still more." Three, "We shall wait our opportunity and pay back America for what she has done to us." I heard the latter expression everywhere, particularly among the upper cla.s.ses. It was the expression of Doctor Drechsler, head of the Amerika-Inst.i.tut in Berlin, and one of the powerful propaganda triumvirate composed of himself, Doctor Bertling, and the late Professor Munsterberg.

With the increasing deterioration inside the German Empire the resolve of the Chancellor to avoid a clash with the United States strengthened daily. His opponents, however, most of the great Agrarians and National Liberals, the men behind Tirpitz, continue to work for a new submarine campaign in which all neutrals will be warned that their vessels will be sunk without notice if bound to or from the ports of Germany's enemies. They are practical men, who believe that only through the unrestricted use of the submarine can Britain, whom they call the keystone of the opposition, be beaten. The Chancellor is also a practical man, who believes that the entrance of America on the side of the Entente would seal the fate of Germany. He is supported by Herr Helfferich, the Vice-Chancellor, and Herr Zimmermann, the foreign Secretary, men with a deep insight into the questions of trade and treaties. They believe that peace will be made across the table and not at the point of the sword, and they realise that it is much better for Germany not to have the United States at the table as an enemy.

In September, 1916, the Chancellor began to lay the wires for a new campaign, a campaign to enlist the services of Uncle Sam in a move for peace. It is significant, however, that he and his Government continue to play the game both ways. While Germany presses her official friends.h.i.+p on the United States, and conducts propaganda there to bring the two nations closer together, she at the same time keeps up the propaganda of hate at home against America, in order to have the support of the people in case of emergency.

The attacks against Was.h.i.+ngton in the _Continental Times_ show which way the wind blows, for this paper is subsidised by the German Foreign Office through the simple device of buying 30,000 copies of each issue--it appears three times weekly--at 2 1/2d.

per copy. The editors are Aubrey Stanhope, an Englishman who even before the war could not return to his native country for reasons of his own, and R. L. Orch.e.l.le, whose real name is Hermann Scheffauer, who claims to be an American, but is not known as such at the American Emba.s.sy in Berlin. He has specialised in attacks against Great Britain in the United States. Some of the vicious onslaughts against Was.h.i.+ngton in Germany were made by him.

American flags are scarce in Berlin to-day, but one always waves from the window of 48, Potsdamerstra.s.se. It is a snare for the unwary, but the League uses it here as in countless other instances as a cloak for its warfare against the U.S.A.

The League started early in the war by issuing booklets by the ton for distribution in Germany and America. Subscription blanks were scattered broadcast for contributions for the cause of light and truth. Donations soon poured in, some of them very large, from Germans and German-Americans who wished, many of them sincerely, to have what they considered the truth told about Germany.

The ways of the League, however, being crooked, some of the charter members began to fall away from one another and many of the doings of the ringleaders are now coming to light.

The League must be doing well financially, as William Martin, the chief of the Potsdamerstra.s.se office, jubilantly declared that no matter how the war ended he would come out of it with a million.

Any real American, whether at home or abroad, deeply resents the degradation of his flag. Yet the League of Truth in Berlin has consistently dragged the Stars and Stripes in the mire, and that in a country which boasts that the police are not only omniscient but omnipotent.

A constant attempt, in accordance with the policy of most German newspapers, I may add, is made to depict us as a spineless jelly-fish nation. They have regarded principles of international custom as little as the manipulators of submarines under the reign of Tirpitz.

Last fourth of July, Charles Mueller, a pseudo-American, hung from his home in the busy Kurfurstendamm a huge American flag with a deep border of black that Berlin might see a "real American's"

symbol of humiliation. On the same day, dear to the hearts of Americans, a four-page flyer was spread broadcast through the German capital with a black border on the front page enclosing a black cross. The Declaration of Independence was bordered with black inside and an ode to American degradation by John L. Stoddard completed the slap in the face.

The League selected January 27th, 1916, the Kaiser's birthday, as a suitable occasion for Mueller and Marten, not even hyphenates, solemnly and in the presence of a great crowd to place an immense wreath at the base of the statue of Frederick the Great on the Linden, with the inscription "Wilson and his Press are not America."

The stern Police Department of Berlin does not permit the promiscuous scattering of floral decorations and advertising matter on the statues of German G.o.ds, and the fact that the wreath remained there month after month proved that somebody high up was sanctioning the methods of the League.

The protests of the American Amba.s.sador were of no avail, until he determined to make an end of the humiliation, after three months, by threatening to go down to this busy section of Berlin, near the Royal Palace, and remove the wreath himself. Force is the only argument which impresses the Prussians, and we are extremely fortunate that our Amba.s.sador to Germany is a man of force.

The League, however, had printed a picture of the wreath in its issue of _Light and Truth_, which it endeavours to circulate everywhere.

Stoddard, mentioned above, is the famous lecturer. He has written booklets for the League, one of which I read in America. His last pamphlet, however, is a most scurrilous attack against his country.

He raves against America, and, after throwing the facts of international law to the winds, he shrieks for the impeachment of Wilson to stop this slaughter for which he has sold himself.

It is no secret in Berlin that the League have systematically hounded Mr. Gerard. I do not know why they hate him, unless it is because he is a member of the American Government. I have heard it said that one way to get at Wilson was through his Amba.s.sador.

Their threats and abuse became so great that he and one of the American newspaper correspondents went to 48, Potsdamerstra.s.se during the _Suss.e.x_ crisis to warn the leaders. They answered by swearing out a warrant against Mr. Gerard with the Berlin police--paying no heed to international customs in such matters--and circulating copies of the charge broadcast.

Readers who are familiar with Germany know that if a man does not instantly defend himself against _Beleidigung_ society judges him guilty. Thus this and countless other printed circulations of falsehood against Mr. Gerard have cruelly hurt him throughout Germany, as I know from personal investigation. Next to Mr. Wilson and a few men in England he is the most hated man among the German people. He finally felt obliged to deny in the German Press some of the absurd stories circulated about him, such as that of Mrs.

Gerard putting a German decoration he received on her dog.

Mueller, however, was not content with mere printed attacks, but has made threats against the life of the American Amba.s.sador. A prominent American has sworn an affidavit to this effect, but Mueller still pursues his easy way. On the night that the farewell dinner was being given to a departing secretary at our Emba.s.sy, Mueller and a German officer went about Berlin seeking Mr. Gerard for the professed purpose of picking a fight with him. They went to Richards' Restaurant, where the dinner was being given, but fortunately missed the Amba.s.sador.

The trickery of the League would fill a volume, for Marten especially is particularly clever. He leapt into fame in Berlin by going to Belgium "at his own risk," as he says, to refute the charges of German cruelty there. His book on Belgium, and a later one claiming to refute the Bryce report, are unimpressive since they fail to introduce facts, and the writer contents himself for the main part with soliloquies on Belgian battlefields, in which he attacks Russian aggression and Britain's perfidy in entering the war. The Belgians, we gather, are more or less delighted with the change from Albert to Wilhelm.

Marten prints testimonials of the book from leading Germans, most of whom, such as General Falkenhayn, content themselves with acknowledgment of receipt with thanks and statement of having read the work. Count Zeppelin goes further, and hopes that the volume will find a wide circulation, particularly in neutral countries.

And now for the vice-president of this anti-American organisation.

He is St. John Gaffney, former American Consul-General to Munich.

He belongs to the modern martyr series of the German of to-day.

All over Germany I was told that he was dismissed by Mr. Wilson because he sympathised with Germany. The Germans as a ma.s.s know nothing further, but I can state from unimpeachable authority that he used rooms of the American Hospital in Munich, while a member of the board of that hospital and an officer in the consular service of the United States, for propaganda purposes. His presence became so objectionable to the heads of the hospital, excellent people whose sole aim is to aid suffering humanity, that he was ousted.

He returned from his American trip after his dismissal last year and gave a widely quoted interview upon arrival in Germany which sought to discredit America--through hitting Mr. Wilson and the Press--in the most tense point of our last altercation in February with Germany over the Lusitania. Such men as Gaffney are greatly to blame for many German delusions.

Mr. Gerard is not the only official whose path has not been strewn with roses in Germany. Our military attache has not been permitted to go to the German front for nearly a year, and the snub is apparent in the newspaper and Government circles of Berlin. He is probably the only one left behind.

The big Press does not use League of Truth material and certain other anti-American copy which would be bad for Germany, to reach foreign critics' attacks. Many provincial papers, however, furiously protested against the recent trip of the American military attache through industrial Germany. It was only the American, not other foreign attaches, to whom they objected.

All this is useful to the German Government, for it keeps the populace in the right frame of mind for two purposes. In the first place, a hatred of America inspired by the belief that she is really an enemy, gives the German Government greater power over the people. Secondly, should the Wilhelmstra.s.se decide to play the relentless submarine warfare as its last hand it will have practically united support.