Chapter 23

The United States at War—Why?

Germany throws to the winds all rules of civilized war.—Dr. Zimmermann’s famous note.—Congress declares war.—Other nations follow our example.—The plight of Holland, Denmark, and Norway.—German arguments for submarine warfare shown to be groundless.—German agents blow up American factories.—German threats against the United States.—Germany and the Monroe Doctrine.—A government whose deeds its people cannot question.—Why American troops were sent to Europe.—Why the war lords wanted peace in January, 1918.

In the meantime, two months had elapsed from the time when the German ambassador, Count Von Bernstorff, had been sent home by the United States. The Germans, true to their word, had begun their campaign of attacking and sinking without warning ships of all kinds in the waters surrounding Great Britain and France. Even the hospital ships, marked plainly with the red cross, and boats carrying food to the starving people of Belgium, were torpedoed without mercy. The curious state of public feeling in Germany is well illustrated by an incident which happened at this time. It so happened that an English hospital ship, crossing the channel, was laden with about as many German wounded as British. These men had been left helpless on the field of battle after the Germans had retreated, and had been picked up and cared for by the British, along with their own troops. A German submarine with its deadly torpedo sent this vessel to the bottom. The wounded men, German and British alike, sank without the slightest chance for their lives. A burst of indignation came from all over Germany against the “unspeakable brutality” of the British who dared to expose German wounded men to the danger of travel on the open sea! The British were warned that if this happened again the Germans would make reprisals upon British prisoners in their hands.

Week followed week and still there was no declaration of war between the United States and Germany. But in the latter part of February, the United States government made public a note which its secret agents had stopped from being delivered to the German ambassador in Mexico. It was signed by Dr. Zimmermann, German minister of foreign affairs, and it requested the ambassador as soon as it was certain that there would be an outbreak of war with the United States as a result of the sinking of ships without warning, to propose to Mexico that she ally herself with Germany. “Together we will make war on the United States,” said Dr. Zimmermann, “and together we will make peace. Mexico will receive as her reward her lost provinces of Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico.” “Ask the Mexican government,” said Dr. Zimmermann, “to propose to the Japanese that Japan break away from her alliance with England and join Mexico and Germany in an attack upon the United States.”

The publication of this note made a tremendous change in feeling in the United States. Up to this time a great portion of the people had felt that perhaps we were hasty in breaking off relations with Germany, and in their earnest desire for peace had been willing to put up with injury and even insults on the part of the Germans, excusing them on the grounds of their military necessity. The publication of Dr. Zimmermann’s note, however, showed the people of the United States the true temper of the government at Berlin. It showed them that the German war lords had no respect for anything but brute force, that the language of cannon was the only language which they could understand, and that any further patience on the part of this country would be looked upon as weakness and treated with scorn and contempt.

On the sixth of April, 1917, Congress, called into session by the President, by an overwhelming vote declared that a state of war existed between the United States of America and the Imperial Government of Germany.

At this point it may be well to sum up the causes that brought the United States into the great war. These causes may be given under two heads: (1) the war waged upon us by submarines; and (2) the German plots and threats against our country at a time when we were at peace with them. The latter, as given in pages to follow, comprise: (a) The Kaiser’s threat, (b) Admiral Von Tirpitz’s threat, (c) the blowing up of American factories and death of American workingmen, (d) the attempt to get us into war with Japan and Mexico, and (e) the spending of the German government’s money in an attempt to make our congressmen vote as Germany wished.

The Submarine War

Up to the time when the United States declared war, two hundred and twenty-six Americans, men, women, and infants, had met their death through the sinking of ships, torpedoed without warning, under orders of the German government. These people were peaceable travelers, going about their business on the high seas in passenger steamers owned by private companies. According to the law observed by all nations up to this time there was no more reason for them to fear danger from the Germans than if they had been traveling on trains in South America or Spain, or any other country not at war. The attack upon these ships, to say nothing about the brutal and inhuman method of sinking them without warning, was an act of war on the part of Germany against any country whose citizens happened to be traveling on these ocean steamers. That the action of the United States in calling the submarine attacks an act of war was only justice is proved by the fact that several other nations, who had nothing to gain by going to war and had earnestly desired to remain neutral, took the same stand. Brazil, Cuba, and several other South and Central American republics found that they could not maintain their honor without declaring war on Germany. German ambassadors and ministers have been dismissed from practically every capital in Spanish America.

In Europe, also, neutral nations like Holland, Denmark, and Norway saw their ships sunk and their citizens drowned. In spite of their wrongs, however, the first two did not dare to declare war on Germany, as the Germans would be able to throw a strong army across the border and overrun each of these two little countries before the allies could come to their help. With the fate of Belgium and Serbia before them, the Danes and the Dutch swallowed their pride and sat helplessly by while Germany killed their sailors and defenseless passengers. After the failure of the Entente to protect Serbia and Roumania, no one could blame Denmark and Holland.

Norway, too, was exposed to danger of a raid by the German fleet. Commanding the Skager Rack and Cattegat as they did, with the Kiel Canal connecting them, the Germans could bombard the cities on the Norwegian coast or even land an army to invade the country. The three little countries together do not have an army any larger than that of Roumania, and it would have been out of the question for them to declare war on Germany without seeing their whole territory overrun and laid waste.

Nevertheless public opinion in Norway was so strong against Germany that the Norwegian government, on November first, 1917 sent a vigorous protest to Berlin, closing with these words:

“The Norwegian government will not again state its views, as it has already done so on several occasions, as to the violation of the principles of the freedom of the high seas incurred by the proclamation of large tracts of the ocean as a war zone and by the sinking of neutral merchant ships not carrying contraband.

“It has made a profound impression on the Norwegian people that not only have German submarines continued to sink peaceful neutral merchant ships, paying no attention to the fate of their crews, but that even German warships adopted the same tactics. The Norwegian government decided to send this note in order to bring to the attention of the German government the impression these acts have made upon the Norwegian people.”

The two arguments that the Germans used in trying to justify themselves for their inhuman methods with the submarine are: (1) that on these ships which were sunk were supplies for the French and British armies, the arrival of which would aid them in killing Germans, and (2) that the English, by their blockade of Germany, were doing something which was contrary to the laws of nations and starving German women and children, and, therefore, since England was breaking some rules of the war game, Germany had the right to go ahead and break others.

The trade of the United States in selling war supplies to France and England was a sore spot with Germany. They claimed that the United States was unfair in selling to the Entente and not to them. Of course, this was foolish, as has been pointed out, for the United States was just as ready to sell to Germany as to the Allies, as was shown by the two voyages of the _Deutschland_. If our government had forbidden our people to sell war supplies at all, and if other neutral countries had done the same thing, then the result would be that all wars would be won by the country which made the biggest preparation for war in times of peace. A law passed by neutral countries forbidding their merchants from selling munitions would leave a non-military nation, which had not been getting ready for war, absolutely at the mercy of a neighbor who for years had been storing up shells and guns for the purpose of unrighteous conquest. So clear was this right to sell munitions that Germany did not dare protest, but ordered Austria to do so instead. In reply, our government was able to point out cases where Austrian firms had sold guns, etc., to Great Britain during the Boer War as you have already been told, and Austria had no answer to give.

What is more, at all of the meetings of the diplomats of different nations at the Hague, called for the purpose of trying to prevent future wars, if possible, or at least to make them more humane and less brutal to the women and children and others who were not actually fighting, Germany had always upheld the right of neutral nations to sell arms. Moreover, her representatives had fought strongly against any proposals to settle disputes by arbitration and peaceful agreements. At a time when many European nations signed treaties with the United States agreeing to allow one year to elapse between a dispute which might lead to war and the actual declaring of war itself, Germany positively refused to consider such an agreement.

As for the English blockade, England was doing no more to Germany than Germany or any other country would have done to England if the English navy had not been so strong. In our own Civil War the North kept up a like blockade of the South and no nation protested against it, for it was recognized as an entirely legal act. In the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans were blockading the city of Paris and the country around it. The Frenchmen tried to send their women and children outside the lines to be fed. The Germans drove them back at the point of the bayonet, and told them that they might “fry in their own fat.” According to the laws of war they were perfectly justified in what they did. Then, too, the English blockade, which stopped ships which were found to be loaded with supplies for Germany and took them peaceably to an English port, where it was decided how much the owners should be paid for the cargoes, was a very different matter from the brutal drowning of helpless men, women, and children by the German submarines. In one case, owners of the goods were caused a great deal of annoyance and in some instances did not get their money promptly. On the other side, there was murder of the most fiendish kind, an act of war against neutral states.

Plots and Threats Against the United States

Let us turn now to the second cause for grievance that the United States had against Germany. At a time when American citizens who sympathized with Germany were subscribing millions of dollars for the relief of the German wounded, it is strongly suspected that this was the very money, which, collected by the German government’s own agents, was being spent in plots involving the destroying of the property of some American citizens and the death of others. The German ambassador and his helpers were hiring men to blow up American factories, to destroy railroad bridges, and to kill Americans who were making war supplies for the armies of Europe. Factory after factory was blown up with considerable loss of life. Bombs, with clock work attachment to explode them at a certain time, were found on ships sailing for Europe. Money was poured out in great quantities to influence members of the United States Congress to vote against the shipment of war supplies to France and England. Revolts paid for by German money were organized in Mexico and the Islands of the West Indies. For a long time there had been a series of stories and newspaper and magazine articles trying to prove to the American people that Japan was planning to make war on us. The same sort of stories appeared in Japan, persuading the Japanese that they were in danger of being attacked by the United States. It now appears that the great part of these stories were started by the Germans, who hoped to get us into a war with Japan and profit by the ill will which must follow between the two countries.

At first, Americans were inclined to think that all of these things could be traced to German-Americans, whose zeal for their Fatherland caused them to go too far. But it has been proved beyond a doubt that all of these acts, which were really acts of war against the United States, were ordered by the government at Berlin and paid for by German money, or by American money which had been contributed for the benefit of the German Red Cross service.

In addition to these facts there were threats against the United States which could not be ignored. The Kaiser had told our ambassador at Berlin, Mr. Gerard, that “America had better beware after this war” for he “would stand no nonsense from her.” Admiral Von Tirpitz, the German Secretary of the Navy, also told Mr. Gerard that Germany needed the coast of Belgium as a place from which to start her “future war on England and America.”

American statesmen were seriously concerned at threats of this kind, for they knew that the government in power at Berlin could absolutely command its people, and by forbidding certain kinds of news and substituting other things in the German newspapers could make the German people think anything which the war lords wished them to think. Thus there was great danger that, having won the war from the Entente or having stood them off successfully until the fight was declared a draw, Germany would next attack the United States with the idea of collecting from this comparatively defenseless and very rich country the huge indemnity which she had planned to assess upon France and Russia. With this money and with the breaking down of the Monroe Doctrine, Germany could set up a great empire in South America which would make her almost as powerful as she would have been had her first plans for crushing France and Russia been successful.

You will recall, from your study of United States history, that President Monroe had warned European governments to keep their hands off South America, for the United States would act as big brother to any of the little republics there who might be attacked by a European foe. Germany in recent years has resented this very vigorously. There were nearly half a million Germans in the southern part of Brazil. Uruguay and the Argentine Republic also had large German settlements. If the Monroe Doctrine were out of the way, Germany hoped that she would be able to get a footing in these countries in which she had colonists and gradually to gain control of the entire country. In the fall of 1917 there was uncovered a plot among the German residents of certain states in the southern part of Brazil to make this territory a part of the German Colonial Empire. This discovery, along with the sinking of Brazilian ships by submarines, drove Brazil into war with Germany.

To sum up: The United States entered the war: first, because German submarines were killing her peaceful citizens and stopping her lawful trade; second, because paid agents of the German government were destroying American property in the United States, killing American citizens, and creating discord in our political life; they were pretending to be friendly and yet were trying to enlist Japan and Mexico in war against us; third, for the reason that because of Germany’s threats and her well-known policy in South America there was grave danger that it would be our turn next if the central powers should come out of the European war uncrushed.

The American government has made it plain that we are not moved by any desire for gain for ourselves. We have nothing to win through the war except the assurance that our nation will be safe. If Germany had a government which the people controlled, then the United States could trust promises of that government. But, as President Wilson has pointed out, no one can trust the present government of Germany, for it is responsible to no one for what it does. It has torn up sacred promises, which its Chancellor called “scraps of paper”; it has broken its word; it has ordered “acts of frightfulness” in the lands which it has conquered and on the high seas, with the idea of brutally forcing its will upon enemies and neutral countries alike. It has deceived its own people, persuading them that they were attacked by France and Russia, while all the time it was plotting to rule the world through force of arms.

President Wilson has said that the object of the United States in this war is “to make the world safe for democracy.” This means that a free people, who have no desire to interfere with any of their neighbors or to make conquests by force of arms, shall be allowed to live their lives without preparation for war and without fear that they may be attacked by a nation with military rulers.

We have seen how France, attacked in 1870 and threatened by Germany in 1875, 1905, of war and 1911 was obliged to match gun for gun and ship for ship with her warlike neighbor to the east. The dread of an attack by the military party of Germany hung over France like a shadow throughout forty-three years of a peace which was only a little better than war, because of the vast amount of money that had to be spent and the attention that had to be given to preparation for the war that all felt would one day come.

When once the German people have a controlling voice in the government, then, and not till then, can other governments believe the word of the statesmen at Berlin. But at present the citizens of Germany have little real power. For, while they can elect members of the Reichstag, the Reichstag can pass no laws, for above this body is the national council, whose members are appointed by the Kaiser and the other kings and grand dukes. The power of declaring war and making peace lies practically in the hands of the Kaiser alone, and at any moment he can set aside any of Germany’s laws, under the plea that “military necessity” calls for certain things to be done. In this way, he has thrown into prison those who dared to speak against the war, and has either suppressed newspapers or ordered them to print only what he wished printed; thus the German people have let him do their thinking for them.

They are a docile people. One of the first words that a German baby is taught to say is “Kaiser,” and all of the schools, which are run by the government, have taught nothing but respect for the present form of government, and almost a worship of the Kaiser himself. What it is hoped that this war will bring about is the freeing of the German people from their blind obedience to the military power, which for its own glory and pride has hurled them by the millions to death.

The United States has adopted plans in this war which are very different from any hitherto used. With the exception of some troops raised for a few months during the dark days of the War of the Rebellion, all of our armies have been recruited from men who enlisted of their own free will. In this great conflict in which we are now engaged, the government has drawn its soldiers by lot from a list of all the young men in the country between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one. Thus, rich and poor alike are fighting in our ranks.

For the first time in our history our troops have been sent to fight on another continent. Many persons have felt that we should keep our young men at home and wait for Germany to cross the Atlantic in order to attack us. Our statesmen, on the other hand, saw that the peace of the world was at stake. If Germany, Austria, and Turkey, the three countries whose people have no voice in the question of peace or war, come out of this conflict victorious, or even undefeated, the world will see again the mad race for armaments which resulted in the war of 1914. If, on the other hand, the people of these nations realize that it is true today, as in the olden times, that those people who take up the sword shall perish by the sword, they will overthrow their leaders and agree to disarm and live at peace in future with their neighbors.

The military parties in Austria and Germany wanted war. The only way by which these people can be convinced is by brute force. When they realize that they have not gained by war, but have lost, not only a great deal of their wealth, through the terrific cost of the war, but the friendship and respect of the whole world, when they realize that the nations allied against them will push the war relentlessly until these military chiefs confess that they never want to hear the word “war” again, then, and only then, will they be ready to throw down their arms and agree to join a league of the nations whose object shall be to prevent any future wars.

As long as Germany was victorious and her people thought that they were going to come out of the conflict with added territory and big money indemnities, war was popular. But with the flower of their young men slain, and the prospect of conquest and plunder growing smaller and smaller with each passing month, the Germans, too, are beginning to hate the thought of war.

The American army can give the finishing touch to the German downfall along the western front, and the sooner the Germans realize that they cannot win from the rapidly growing number of their enemies, the sooner will come the the end of this greatest tragedy in the civilized world.

The war lords knew that if the war lasted long enough they must be defeated and they were striving hard all through the years 1916 and 1917 to make peace while they had possession of enough of the enemy’s lands so that they could show their own people some gain in territory to pay them back for their terrible sufferings. The German war debt was so great that the war lords dreaded to face their own people after the latter realized that they had been deceived as well as defeated. The government had told them (1) that England, France, and Russia forced this war upon Germany, (2) that the German armies would win the war in short order, and (3) that a huge sum of money would be collected from France, Belgium, and Russia to pay the expenses of the war. The war lords dreaded to think of the time when their people, knowing that they themselves will have to bear the fearful burden of war debt, learned also that the whole tragedy was forced upon the world by the pride and ambition of their own leaders. By Christmas 1917, the Kaiser was once more hinting that Germany was ready to talk peace. He was wise, for if peace could have been made then it would have left Germany absolute mistress of all of middle Europe. Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey were more under the control of the Kaiser and his war lords than were parts of his own empire like Bavaria and Saxony. In Belgium, Serbia, Poland, Lithuania, Roumania, and northern France the central powers had over forty millions of people who were compelled to work for them like slaves. The plunder collected from these countries ran into billions of dollars. The road to the east, cut asunder by the results of the second Balkan war (see map), had been forced open by the rush of the victorious German armies through Serbia and Roumania. A peace at this time would have been a German victory. With the drain on the man power of the central powers, with dissatisfaction growing among their people, with the steady increase in the armies of the United States, time was fighting on the side of the allies.

Questions for Review

Does the Zimmermann note show that the German government understood conditions in Mexico and the United States?

Why did the Zimmermann note have so strong an effect upon American public opinion?

What were the steps by which the United States was forced into war?

Why did not Holland and Denmark declare war on Germany also?

What was the main difference between the English blockade of Germany and the German submarine war on England?

Was the German government responsible for the acts of its agents in this country?

What is the Monroe Doctrine?

Why could not the Imperial Government of Germany be trusted?

How was this war different for the United States from any previous conflict?

What was the greatest obstacle to peace?