Chapter 21

The War Under the Sea

Britannia rules the waves.—Enter the submarine.—The blockade of Germany.—The sinking of the _Lusitania_ and other ships.—The trade in munitions of war.—The voyages of the _Deutschland_.—Germany ready for peace (on her own terms).—The reply of the allies.—Germany’s amazing announcement.—The United States breaks off friendly relations.

You will remember how hard the Germans had worked, building warships, with the hope that one day their navy might be the strongest in the world. At the outbreak of the great war in 1914 they were still far behind England in naval power. On the other hand, it was necessary for the English to keep their navy scattered all over the world. English battleships were guarding trade routes to Australia, to China, to the islands of the Pacific. The Suez Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Island of Malta—all were in English hands, and ships and guns were needed to defend them.

The German navy, on the other hand, with the exception of a few cruisers in the Pacific Ocean and two warships in the Mediterranean, was gathered in the Baltic Sea, the southeastern part of the North Sea, and the great Kiel Canal which connected these two bodies of water. It was quite possible that this fleet, by making a quick dash for the ports of England, might find there only a portion of the English ships and be able to overwhelm them before the rest of the English navy should assemble from the far parts of the earth.

Winston Churchill, whose name you have read before, had the foresight to assemble enough English vessels in home waters in the latter part of the month of July, 1914, to give England the upper hand over the fleet of Germany. As a result, finding the British too strong, the Germans did not venture out into the high seas to give battle. A few skirmishes were fought between cruisers, then some speedy German warships made a dash across the North Sea to the coast of England, shelled some small towns, killed several men, women, and children and returned, getting back to the Kiel Canal before the English vessels arrived in any number.

A second raid was attempted a few weeks later but by this time the British were on the watch. Two of the best German cruisers were sunk and the others barely escaped the fire of the avengers.

About the first of June, 1916, a goodly portion of the German fleet sailed out, hoping to catch the British unawares. They were successful in sinking several large ships, but when the main British fleet arrived they began in turn to suffer great losses, and were obliged to retire. With the exception of these two fights and two other battles fought off the coast of South America (in the first of which a small English fleet was destroyed by the Germans, and in the second a larger British fleet took revenge), there have been no battles between the sea forces.

The big navy of England ruled the ocean. German merchant vessels were either captured or forced to remain in ports of neutral nations. German commerce was swept from the seas, while ships carrying supplies to France and the British Isles sailed unmolested—for a time. Only in the Baltic Sea was Germany mistress. Commerce from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark was kept up as usual. Across the borders of Holland and Switzerland came great streams of imports. Merchants in these little countries bought, in the markets of the world, apparently for themselves, but really for Germany.

However, not for long did British commerce sail unmolested. A new and terrible menace was to appear. This was the submarine boat, the invention of Mr. John Holland, an American, but improved and enlarged by the Germans. In one of the early months of the war three British warships, the _Hogue_, the _Cressy_, and the _Aboukir_, were cruising about, guarding the waters of the North Sea. There was the explosion of a torpedo, and the _Hogue_ began to sink. One of her sister ships rushed in to pick up the crew as they struggled in the water. A second torpedo struck and a second ship was sinking. Nothing daunted by the fate of the other two, the last survivor steamed to the scene of the disaster—the German submarine once more shot its deadly weapon, and three gallant ships with a thousand men had gone down.

This startled the world. It was plain that battleships and cruisers were not enough. While England controlled the surface of the sea, there was no way to prevent the coming and going of the German submarine beneath the waters. All naval warfare was changed in a moment; new methods and new weapons had to be employed.

At the outset of the war the English and French fleets had set up a strict blockade of Germany. There were certain substances which were called “contraband of war” and which, according to the law of nations, might be seized by one country if they were the property of her enemy. On the list of contraband were all kinds of ammunition and guns, as well as materials for making these. England and France, however, added to the list which all nations before the war had admitted to be contraband substances like cotton, which was very necessary in the manufacture of gun-cotton and other high explosives, gasoline—fuel for the thousands of automobiles needed to transport army supplies, and rubber for their tires. Soon other substances were added to the list.

An attempt was made to starve Germany into making peace. The central empires, in ordinary years, raise only about three-fourths of the food that they eat. With the great supply of Russian wheat shut off and vessels from North America and South America not allowed to pass the British blockade, Germany’s imports had to come by way of Holland, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries. When Holland in 1915 began to buy about four times as much wheat as she had eaten in 1913, it did not take a detective to discover that she was secretly selling to Germany the great bulk of what she was buying apparently for herself. In a like manner Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries suddenly developed a much greater appetite than before the war! The British blockade grew stricter. It was agreed to allow these countries to import just enough food for their own purposes. The British trusted that they would rather eat the food themselves than sell it to Germany even at very high prices. The Germans soon began to feel the pinch of hunger. They had slaughtered many of their cows for beef and as a result grew short of milk and butter.

To strike back at England, Germany announced that she would use her submarines to sink ships carrying food to the British Isles. This happened in February, 1915. There was a storm of protest from the world in general, but Germany agreed that her submarine commanders should warn each ship of its danger and allow the captain time to get the passengers and crew into boats before the deadly torpedo was shot. Still the crew, exposed to the danger of the ocean in open boats, and often cast loose miles from shore, were in serious danger.

The laws of nations, as observed by civilized countries in wars up to this time, have said that a blockade, in order to be recognized by all nations, had to be successful in doing the work for which it was intended. If England really was able to stop every boat sailing for German shores, then all nations would have to admit that Germany was blockaded; but if the Germans were able to sink only one ship out of every hundred that sailed into English ports, Germany could hardly be said to be carrying on a real blockade of England. In spite of protests from neutral nations who were peaceably trying to trade with all the countries at war, this sinking of merchantmen by submarines went on.

In May, 1915, the great steamship _Lusitania_ was due to sail from New York for England. A few days before her departure notices signed by the German ambassador were put into New York papers, warning people that Germany would not be responsible for what happened to them if they took passage on this boat. Very few people paid any attention to these warnings. With over a thousand persons on board the _Lusitania_ sailed, on schedule time. Suddenly the civilized world was horrified to hear that a German submarine, without giving the slightest warning, had sent two torpedoes crashing through the hull of the great steamer, sending her to the bottom in short order. A few had time to get into the boats, but over eight hundred men, women, and children were drowned, of whom over one hundred were American citizens. Strange as it may seem, this action caused a thrill of joy throughout Germany. Some of the Germans were horrified, as were people in neutral countries, but on the whole the action of the German navy was approved by the voice of the German people. With a curiously warped sense of right and wrong the Germans proclaimed that the English and Americans were brutal in allowing women and children to go on this boat when they had been warned that the boat was going to be sunk! They spoke of this much in the manner in which one would speak of the cruelty of a man who would drive innocent children and women to march in front of armies in order to protect the troops from the fire of their enemies.

A storm of indignation against Germany burst out all over the United States. Many were for immediate war. Calmer plans, however, prevailed, and the upshot of the matter was that a stern note was sent to Berlin notifying the Kaiser that the United States could not permit vessels carrying Americans to be torpedoed without warning on the open seas. The German papers proceeded to make jokes about this matter. They pictured every French and English boat as refusing to sail until at least two Americans had been persuaded to go as passengers, so that the boat might be under the protection of the United States.

However, in spite of Germany’s solemn promise that nothing of the sort would happen again, similar incidents kept occurring, although on a smaller scale. The American steamers _Falaba_ and _Gulflight_ were torpedoed without warning, in each case with the loss of one or two lives. Finally, the steamer _Sussex_, crossing the English Channel, was hit by a torpedo which killed many of the passengers. As several Americans lost their lives, once more the United States warned Germany that this must not be repeated. Germany acknowledged that her submarine commander had gone further than his orders allowed him and promised that the act should not be repeated—provided that the United States should force England to abandon what Germany called her illegal blockade. The United States in reply made it plain that while the English blockade was unpleasant to American citizens, still it was very different from the brutal murder of women and children on the high seas. England, when convinced that an American ship was carrying supplies which would be sold in the end to Germany, merely took this vessel into an English port, where a court decided what the cargo was worth and ordered the British government to pay that sum to the (American) owners.

This was resented by the American shippers, but it was not anything to go to war over. The United States gave warning that she would hold Germany responsible for any damage to American ships or loss of American lives.

All of this time the Germans were accusing the United States of favoring the nations of the Entente because they were selling munitions of war to them and none to Germany. They said that it was grossly unfair for neutral nations to sell to one side when, owing to the blockade, they could not sell to the other also. When a protest was made by Austria, the United States pointed out that a similar case had come up in 1899. At that time the empire of Great Britain was at war with two little Dutch Republics in South Africa. The Dutch, completely blockaded, could not buy munitions in the open market. Nevertheless, this fact did not prevent both Austria and Germany from selling guns and ammunition to Great Britain. (It must be made plain that the United States _government_ was not selling munitions of war to any of the warring nations. What Germany wanted and Austria asked was that our government should prevent our private companies, as, for example our steel mills, from shipping any goods which would eventually aid in killing Germans. The United States made it plain that our people had no feeling in the matter—that they were in business, and would sell to whomsoever came to buy; that it was not our fault that the British navy, being larger than the German, prevented Germany from trading with us.)

In the meanwhile explosions kept occurring in the many munition factories in the United States that were turning out shells and guns for the Allies. Several hundred Americans were killed in these explosions, and property to the value of millions of dollars was destroyed. It was proved that the Austrian ambassador and several of the German diplomats had been hiring men to commit these crimes. They were protected from our courts by the fact that they were representatives of foreign nations, but the President insisted that their governments recall them.

The Germans made a great point about the brutality of the English blockade. They told stories about the starving babies of Germany, who were being denied milk because of the cruelty of the English. As a matter of fact, what Germany really lacked was rubber, cotton, gasoline, and above all, nickel and cobalt, two metals which were needed in the manufacture of guns and shells.

Finally, in the summer of 1916, came a world surprise. A large German submarine, the _Deutschland_, made the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and bobbed up unexpectedly in the harbor of Baltimore. In spite of all the trouble that the United States had had with Germany over the sinking of ships by submarines, the crew of this vessel was warmly received, and the cargo of dyes which she brought was eagerly purchased. The Germans, in return, loaded their ship with the metals and other products of which Germany was so short. As one American newspaper said, the _Deutschland_ took back a cargo of nickel and rubber to the starving babies of Germany. Once more the _Deutschland_ came, this time to New London, and again her crew was welcomed with every sign of hospitality.

In December, 1916, at the close of the victorious German campaign against Roumania, the central powers, weary of war and beginning to feel the pinch of starvation and the drain on their young men, made it known that as they had won the war they were now ready to treat for peace. This message carried with it a threat to all countries not at war that if they did not help to force the Entente to accept the Kaiser’s peace terms, Germany could not be held responsible for anything that might happen to them in the future.

President Wilson, always apprehensive that something might draw the United States into the conflict, grasped eagerly at this opportunity, and in a public message he asked both sides to state to the world on what terms they would stop the war.

The Germans and their allies did not make a clear and definite proposal. On the other hand, the nations of the Entente, in no uncertain terms, declared that no peace would be made unless the central powers restored what they had wrongfully seized, paid the victims of their unprovoked attack for the damage they had done, and guaranteed that no such act should ever be committed in the future. They also declared that the Poles, Danes, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Alsatians, and Serbs should be freed from the tyrannous governments which now enslaved them. In plain language this meant that the central powers must give back part of Schleswig to Denmark, allow the kingdom of Poland to be restored as it once had been; permit the Bohemians and Slovaks to form an independent nation in the midst of Austria-Hungary; allow the people of Alsace and Lorraine the right of returning to France; annex the Italians in Austria-Hungary to Italy, and permit the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina to join their cousins to the southeast in one great Serbian nation.

When these terms were published the German government exclaimed that while they had been willing to make peace and perhaps even give back the conquered portions of Belgium and northern France in return for the captured German colonies in Africa and the Pacific Ocean, with the payment of indemnities to Germany, now it was plain that the nations of the Entente intended to wipe out utterly the German nation and dismember the empire of Austria-Hungary; and that since Germany had offered her enemies an honorable peace and they had refused, the only thing left for the central powers to do was to fight to the bitter end and _use any means whatsoever to force their enemies to make peace_.

In other words, here were the two conflicting claims: Germany said, “We have won the war. Don’t you recognize the fact that you have been beaten? Give us back our colonies, organize a kingdom of Poland, out of the part of Russian Poland which we have conquered, as a separate kingdom under our protection, but don’t expect us to join to this any part of Austrian or Prussian Poland. (Prussian and Austrian Poland are _ours_. You wouldn’t expect _us_ to give up any part of _them_, would you?) Allow us to keep the port of Antwerp and maintain our control over the Balkan peninsula. We will restore to you northern France, most of Belgium, and even part of Serbia. See what a generous offer we are making!”

The Allied nations replied, in effect: “You now have gotten three-fourths of what you aimed at when you began the war. If we make peace now, allowing you to keep the greater part of what you have conquered, you will be magnanimous and give back a small portion of it if we in turn surrender all your lost colonies. Hardly! We demand, on the other hand, that you recompense, as far as you can, the miserable victims of your savage attack for the death and destruction that you have caused; that you put things back as you found them as nearly as possible; that you make it plain to us that never again will we have to be on guard against the possibility of a ruthless invasion by your army; that you give to the peoples whom you and your allies have forcibly annexed or retained under your rule a chance to choose their own form of government.”

Then said the Germans to the world, “You see! They want to wipe us out of existence and cut the empire of our allies into small bits. Nothing is left but to fight for our existence, and, as we are fighting for our existence, all rules hitherto observed in civilized warfare are now called off!”

In the latter part of January, 1917, the German government announced that, inasmuch as they had tried to bring about an honorable peace (which would have left them still in possession of three-fourths the plunder they had gained in the war) and this peace offer had been rejected by the Entente, all responsibility for anything which might happen hereafter in the war would have to be borne by France, England, etc., and not by Germany. It was stated that Germany was fighting for her existence, and that when one’s life is at stake all methods of fighting are permissible. Germany proposed, therefore, to send out her submarines and sink _without warning_ all merchant ships sailing toward English or French ports.

In a special note to the United States, the German government said that once a week, at a certain time, the United States would be permitted to send a passenger vessel to England, provided that this boat were duly inspected and proved to have no munitions of war or supplies for England on board. It must be painted all over with red, white, and blue stripes and must be marked in other ways so that the German submarine commanders would know it. (It must be remembered that Germany insisted that she was fighting for the freedom of the seas!)

Now, at all times, it has been recognized that the open seas are free to all nations for travel and commerce. This proposal, to sink without warning all ships on the ocean, was a bit of effrontery that few had imagined even the German government was capable of.

President Wilson had been exceedingly patient with Germany. In fact, a great majority of the newspaper and magazine writers in the country had criticized him for being too patient. The great majority of the people of the United States were for peace, ardently. The government at Washington knew this. Nevertheless, this last announcement by Germany that she proposed to kill any American citizens who dared to travel on the sea in the neighborhood of England and France seemed more than a self-respecting nation could endure. The Secretary of State sent notice to Count Von Bernstorff, the German ambassador, to leave this country. Friendly relations between the imperial government of Germany and the United States of America were at an end.

Questions for Review

How did the submarine boat change methods of warfare?

What is contraband of war?

Was it right to prevent the importation of food into Germany?

Why would a nation which manufactured a great deal of war material object to the sale of such material to fighting nations by nations at peace?

Show how this rule, if carried out, would have a tendency to make all nations devote too much work to the preparation of war supplies.

Show the difference between the British blockade and the sinking of ships by German submarines.

Would the blowing up of American factories by paid agents of the German government have been a good enough reason for the United States to have declared war?

How did the voyages of the _Deutschland_ prove that the United States wanted to be fair to both sides in the war?

What reasons had Austria and Germany for wishing peace in December 1916?

Why did President Wilson ask the warring nations to state their aims in the war?

How did Germany try to justify the sinking of ships without warning?