III.
Having outlined some of the many sources of information upon which Americans have relied in forming their opinions of Germany and her actions in this war, I now will state what the American opinion is in regard to some of the vital issues which have been raised. In doing this, I will not endeavour to explain that opinion, to criticise it, nor to defend it. Neither will I give you my personal opinion on the several points, for my own personal opinion is of slight consequence when we are discussing the attitude of an entire nation. If you desire, I will be glad to tell you, on some other occasion, just how far my own opinions coincide with the collective opinion of the country at large, and just where I differ from that opinion. My object at present is simply to interpret American opinion to you as it exists to-day. When I say "American opinion," I mean, of course, the opinion of the vast majority of our people. A significant proportion of the German-born population and a very small proportion of native Americans (usually those married to Germans or otherwise connected with Germany) disagree with the opinions cited. But over 90 per cent. of our population may safely be said to hold the views described as "American" below.
In the first place, Americans, in general, make a distinction between the German Government and the German people. They realise that certain features of the Prussianised Government have never appealed favourably to the Bavarians, the Saxons, and other elements of the German population. I do not mean by this that Americans believe any part of Germany is disloyal to the Government. On the contrary, they believe the German people as a whole are supporting the Government and its acts with devotion, and that, therefore, the German people as a whole are responsible for whatever acts the Government commits. But Americans recognise the reality of Prussian leadership in the policy of your country. They do not believe the German people wanted the war; but they do believe the military Government, under Prussian control, wanted the war, planned for it with infinite skill and efficiency for many years, and brought it about when they believed the time was ripe.
Americans have no doubt whatever that the insolent ultimatum to Servia was delivered for the purpose of provoking war, and that Austria would never have dared send it were it not for the fact that the German Government "assured her a free hand" in advance, as has been officially admitted by your Government. The fact that Austria refused to make public the full evidence on which she based her accusations against the Servian Government, added to the fact that she made these accusations after a secret investigation in which the defendant had no representation, has shocked not only America but the entire world; and has convinced the world, as a whole, that Austria and Germany were more guilty of wrongdoing than was Servia.
Americans have studied carefully the official documents issued by the different Governments concerning the origin of the war, and have had the advantage of seeing all the papers which each has published. The official papers issued by England, Germany, France, Austria, and the other Governments have been printed in full in pamphlet form, and have been eagerly studied by the whole nation. Edition after edition has been exhausted by a people eagerly seeking to learn the truth. In Germany there has been no such eagerness to learn the truth by careful, critical study of the official sources of information, and leading Germans have regretfully admitted that too many of the German people were content to accept their Government's statements as the truth, without attempting to use their own intelligence in the matter. In the opinion of Americans the official documents, and especially the admissions made by your Government in its attempted defence, prove that the German Government forced the war in order to satisfy the ambitions of the military party which has long been in control. When you have a chance to read certain documents which your Government does not let you read now, you can form an impartial judgment as to whether or not Americans and the other neutral peoples have been unjust in deciding that Germany is responsible for the war. Until that time you will, of course, feel that the judgment of the world does your country a terrible wrong. The Government which caused the war is not going to let its people read things which would shake their confidence, and cause them to weaken in their support of the war!
If Germany really exercised a moderating influence at Vienna, and strove to avert the war, the State papers exchanged between Berlin and Vienna would clearly prove this, if published. Germany has every reason to publish those papers and prove her sincerity, if she tried to prevent the war. On the other hand, both Germany and Austria have every reason to keep those papers secret if they were jointly planning the war. They have kept the papers secret. Not one word of the vital correspondence between the two Teutonic capitals has ever been made public. Even your own people are entirely ignorant as to what exchanges really took place in the critical days preceding the declarations of war. You only know, and the world only knows, that Germany made the vague general assertion that she was "exercising a moderating influence at Vienna." You can hardly expect the world to believe such a vague generality when the documents which would prove its truth or falsity are carefully suppressed. Why are they suppressed? Americans, in common with the rest of the world, are convinced that your Government does not dare publish them because it would prove the guilt of Germany more conclusively than do the admissions contained in papers already made public.
It is the practically universal opinion, not only in America, but in other neutral countries as well, that the repeated excuses and shifty evasions by which Berlin rejected every plan for mediation, arbitration, or any other programme which would tend toward a peaceful solution of the crisis, combined with Berlin's acknowledgment that "a free hand was assured" to Austria, and the further fact that all correspondence between Berlin and Vienna is carefully suppressed, are amply sufficient to convince any fair-minded, unprejudiced man that the Berlin Government is primarily responsible for the war. The fact that Germany has for years published a voluminous war literature, has taught her people to think and live in terms of war, and was fully prepared with enormous reserves of materials when war came; whereas the Allied countries were notoriously unprepared and in no condition to ward off the first blows of a surprise attack, to say nothing of fighting an offensive campaign, is generally considered enough to create a strong presumption that Germany and not the Allies wanted war. The official correspondence of the ante-bellum days is full of suggestions for arbitration, mediation, and other plans to preserve the peace, coming from the Allied countries. Americans have searched in vain for a single plan for a peaceful solution coming from Germany. On the contrary, your own version of the negotiations shows only a persistent rejection by Berlin of every peace plan, and a dogged determination to support Vienna in her assault on Servia—an assault which, following the robbery of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria under Germany's protection, could not be endured by a civilised world, and was, therefore, certain to cause war.
When Servia, urged by the Allies to yield as much as possible in order to prevent war, acceded to eight out of ten of Austria's humiliating demands and agreed to arbitrate the two involving her national sovereignty, the world saw that the Allied countries did not want war, and were willing to suffer great humiliation for the sake of preventing it. Americans do not consider that any fair-minded man possessed of ordinary commonsense can honestly believe that nations seeking to provoke war with Germany would have urged their protégé to make a humiliating surrender to insolent and unjust demands. If there were any truth in the assertion that the Allies were trying to force war on Germany, they would have advised Servia to resist, not to yield. When Austria, backed by Germany, declared war on Servia, despite Servia's abject and complete surrender on eight points and willingness to arbitrate the other two, there no longer existed outside of Germany and Austria the slightest doubt that Germany was forcing the war to achieve the aggrandisement which has been taught for years in your country as the natural destiny of Germany.
Germany's guilt in forcing the war is recognised not only by Americans and other neutral peoples, but by hundreds of thousands of Germans who live in neutral countries and thus have a chance to learn more of the truth than is possible in the belligerent countries. Germans who were in Germany when the war broke out, but who have since come to America, have told me personally that, after learning the whole truth, they can no longer doubt Germany's responsibility for the catastrophe. Germans who have left here to go back and fight for the Fatherland admitted to me in private conversation that they knew Germany forced the war, and that the Kaiser and the Prussian military party were alone to blame. I know Germans who are liberally supporting the Allied cause because they believe the defeat of Prussianism is essential to a civilised Germany. Even your rigid censorship has not prevented our receipt of occasional letters from Germans, in which they admit the uncertainty of Germany's claim that the Allies forced the war. A considerable element of independent thinkers in Germany have had the wisdom to realise the perfectly obvious truth that no Government is willing to admit responsibility for the war, and that therefore your Government's assertion that it did not start the present conflagration can carry no weight until the whole truth is revealed to the German people, and they are thus given the opportunity to form an intelligent judgment, like men, instead of being forced to believe mere assertions and partial evidence, like children. To-day you believe in the innocence of the Prussian military power; but few people in the rest of the world doubt its guilt. Tomorrow, when the war is over, and you can get an outside view of the whole question, you will have the chance to form an intelligent judgment as to what nation History will for ever record as the one guilty of this fearful crime against humanity.
The violation of Belgian neutrality shocked Americans as it did the rest of the civilised world, and turned the tide of sentiment against Germany more strongly than ever. Americans are practically unanimous in regarding the belated excuses of your Government, to the effect that Belgian neutrality was already violated by the Allies, as mere clumsy subterfuges, trumped up to stem the terrible tide of universal condemnation heaped upon Germany for this crime against an innocent people. Nothing that any German can ever say or write will efface from the memory of the world the uncontrovertible fact that your Chancellor officially admitted your country's guilt in this matter. "The wrong—I speak openly, gentlemen—the wrong we have done Belgium will be righted when our military ends are accomplished." In these words your Chancellor blundered out a truth which has for ever silenced all your apologists for the crime. American opinion considers it discreditable and futile to invent charges against French soldiers on Belgian soil and French aviators flying over Belgian territory; and to try to make out a case in defence of Germany—when your Chancellor has officially admitted Germany's guilt. Americans have no doubt that on the basis of the well-known facts of the case, supplemented by your Chancellor's admission of guilt, History will for ever record Germany's brutal disregard of her treaty obligations and her murderous assault on a small, innocent nation as one of the most terrible crimes ever committed by a nation claiming to rank high among civilised peoples.
The plea that "military necessity" justified the destruction of an innocent people, that the invasion of Belgium was necessary as a measure of "self-defence," Americans consider as striking proof of the essential barbarity of the German Government. A man who would shoot down an innocent girl in order to get at another man would be condemned as the worst kind of a brute. A Government which slaughters an innocent and peaceful people in order to get at an enemy Government is universally regarded by Americans as the worst type of a barbarous Government. No truly civilised Government could be so brutally selfish as to protect itself by inflicting the horrors of fearful war upon a helpless and unoffending people.
You dismiss the question of atrocities by asking if Americans can believe that such Germans as I know would commit such awful deeds. The reply to this is that, while Americans realise that there are many Germans who would rather die than do a cruel act, Germany possesses a military Government which has convinced Americans and the rest of the world that, under the plea of "military necessity," it will commit the most barbarous crimes. History demonstrates that a military Government stifles the finer instincts of the people which support it. Many Germans struggled to overthrow the military clique in Germany, and some of them are among the most gentle-hearted, kindly souls it has ever been my good fortune to meet. Others have exalted the military and the idea of war; and while boarding in the home of a German army officer I witnessed heartless and cruel acts which I do not believe could have occurred in any other civilised country among people of the same education and intelligence. Unfortunately, Americans see no opportunity to doubt the barbarous behaviour of the German army; and in the debate over the Zabern affair some of your best citizens rebelled against military brutality—but the punishment meted out to the military offenders was nullified by your military Government. In the present war that same Government has admitted and justified unspeakable atrocities under the plea of "military necessities." Americans do not believe every lie wafted on the wings of gossip; but when your book of instructions to army officers expressly breaks down every safeguard for civilised warfare by justifying "exceptions" to the rules governing such warfare, Americans cannot fail to conclude that your Government is more barbarous than that of any other country claiming to be civilised; for other countries do not now recognise the right of armies to make such exceptions. Your Government, in trying to defend itself against the storm of world-criticism, has admitted and justified the slaughter of innocent hostages as a "military necessity." No other civilised country does this; and Americans consider the German Government both brutal and barbarous for permitting this utterly inhuman practice. American soldiers in Vera Cruz were killed by franctireurs; but our Government would hang any American officer who permitted the murder of innocent hostages on that account. Your Government justifies and excuses such measures; therefore Americans have been forced to conclude that your Government is less civilised than are the Governments of America, England, and France, which forbid such conduct.
Your Government executed a woman of noble character, and defends its act as perfectly legal and a "military necessity." Americans are quite willing to admit that Miss Cavell may have been guilty of the charges brought against her. Yet the entire world stood horrified when the Government of Germany, with due legal form, committed a crime against womanhood and against humanity, which for centuries will make Germans blush for shame when the name of Miss Cavell is mentioned. Englishmen blush at the memory of Jeffreys, but no Englishman ever defends that fiendish butcher of women. Americans blush at the memory of Mrs. Surratt; but few Americans will defend her execution. The fact that Germans have risen to defend the Cavell atrocity led many Americans to conclude that the brutalising influence of militarism has made the mass of the German people less humane than are the peoples of other countries, since they defend what other peoples condemn.
Your Government has bombarded unfortified seacoast towns which Americans know from personal observation, both before the war and during the bombardment, were not defended in any way. Mothers and babies were blown to shreds, but no military damage was done in most cases. Dozens of helpless old men, women and children were killed for every soldier slain. The same is true of your Zeppelin raids. Americans believe these acts are committed for the purpose of stirring up enthusiasm among the German populace. They believe such acts are in defiance of the rules of civilised warfare, that they are utterly inhuman and barbarous, and that a nation which approves and applauds such senseless slaughter is less civilised than other modern nations. The British Government has steadfastly refused to accede to the clamour of a few of its citizens who urge a policy of wholesale reprisals against German open towns. Americans honour this respect for the rules of civilised warfare and regret that even occasionally France has yielded to the provocation for reprisal raids against such a place as Freiburg. The fact that Germany began the slaughter of babies and women in defiance of the rules of war, and has kept it up in frequent raids by warships, Zeppelins, and aeroplanes, whereas the Allies have very seldom attacked open towns, and then only as occasional reprisals following peculiarly barbarous German attacks, has won for Germany the condemnation, and for the Allies the commendation of the civilised world.
The Lusitania atrocity removed from the minds of the American people the last possible doubt as to the essential barbarity of the German Government. No other Government pretending to be civilised has ever shocked the entire world by such a sickening crime against humanity. It is utterly inconceivable that the American nation could descend so low in the scale of humanity as to order the deliberate destruction of an English ship bearing hundreds of innocent German women and children across the seas. But if such a thing were conceivable, you could not find in the American navy an officer who would obey the inhuman order. Nor do Americans believe that the English or French Governments could ever disgrace their countries' honour by such a barbarous act. I am shocked and surprised that a man of your position and intelligence can find it in his heart to defend an act which has for ever stained the fair name and honour of your country.
I read with amazement your assertions that the Lusitania was armed, that she carried ammunition in defiance of American laws, and that our official inspection of her was careless. Your own Government has itself abandoned the false charge that the Lusitania carried guns, and no longer makes such a ridiculous claim; while the German reservist who pretended to have seen the gun has admitted that he lied and is now serving a term in prison for perjury. You are not familiar with American shipping-laws which expressly permit the carrying of certain types of ammunition on passenger vessels, and you are, of course, quite ignorant as to what inspection of the vessel was made in New York, for you were in Germany at the time. Your assertions were made wholly on the basis of the false statements furnished you in Government-controlled papers. You had no means of determining the truth or falsity of the statements, on the basis of reliable and impartial evidence; yet you did not hesitate to make assertions which your own Government now practically admits were not well founded. The fact that the learned men of Germany have throughout the war violently supported the German position by reckless charges and wild assertions, paying no regard to the necessity of basing such charges and assertions on impartial evidence, instead of accepting with child-like simplicity the unsupported statements of the German Government, has destroyed the confidence of Americans in the ability of the German educated men to think and reason fairly and honestly about the war.
The manifestos of the German professors, issued to Americans, did much to alienate American sympathy from Germany; for the bitterness and unreasoning fury of the documents, combined with the entire absence of evidence to support the many reckless statements made in them, did much to convince Americans that the German position was not capable of honest, logical, dispassionate, manly defence. There has never at any time been any such outbreak of fury and bitterness among the English or French people. While there are individual exceptions, taken as a whole the press, pamphlets, and private letters of the English and French, dealing with the war, have from the first been characterised by a self-control and calm determination, which in the case of the French has especially astonished Americans; for we expected the French to be more excitable. Taken as a whole, the Teutonic literature has from the first been characterised by an uncontrollable bitterness and violent denunciation of the enemy and of neutrals; which has also surprised Americans, for we expected you to be more logical and self-contained than the French, instead of less so.
Americans believe that the German people are a great people, capable of great and good things. They honour and admire the Germany which finds her best expression in the literature, music, and science which has justly made you famous. But they distrust and abhor the German Government which has made the name of Germany infamous. The heroic bravery of the German soldiers dying for their Fatherland, and the heroic fortitude of the German women who bear and suffer—all fail to evoke any enthusiasm in this country, or in other neutral countries, because of the stain which the German military Government has put upon their sacrifices. Your greatest victories bring no world honour to your armies because of the cloud of dishonour which hangs over every achievement of the German military machine. There is no enthusiasm, and very little praise, for the captors of Warsaw and Vilna, for Americans remember that it was German soldiers who murdered innocent hostages from "military necessity," who destroyed much of Louvain from "military necessity," who violated every rule of civilised warfare and humanity in Belgium from "military necessity," who executed a noble English nurse from "military necessity," who wrecked priceless monuments of civilisation in France from "military necessity," who have dropped bombs from the sky in the darkness upon sleeping women and children in unfortified places, and slaughtered hundreds of innocent non-combatants from "military necessity," who sent babes at the breast and their innocent mothers shrieking and strangling to a watery grave in mid-ocean from "military necessity," and who have defended every barbarous act, every crime against humanity on the specious and selfish plea that it was justified by "military necessity." Your Government has robbed your soldiers of all honour in the eyes of the world by making them the instruments of a military policy which the rest of the world unanimously condemns as brutal and barbarous.
It seems to thoughtful Americans who know Germany and Germans best, that the highest duty of intelligent German professors like yourself is not to attempt the hopeless task of converting the rest of the world to an approval of the methods of the German Government, but rather to use your whole influence to establish a German Government which shall have a decent respect for the opinions of the rest of the world, and shall restore Germany to the place it used to have among civilised nations. Your greatest enemy is not the Russian, nor the French, nor the British Government. They might defeat you in war, but they never could take away your honour. Your greatest enemy is the Government which has dragged the fair name of Germany in the mire of dishonour, shocking the moral instincts of the whole world by acts no other civilised country would think of committing. Your greatest enemy is the Government which stifles your individual development by making you the obedient tools of the "State," which smothers your free thought by a muzzled press under police control, which makes your learned men ridiculous in the eyes of the world by training them to blind, unthinking support of the Government and credulous belief in whatever falsehoods it chooses to impose upon you for military and political purposes, which hurls you into a disastrous war without your knowledge or consent, and which brings down upon you the contempt of the whole world for crimes you would not yourselves commit, but which you must forsooth defend "for the good of the State."
Americans believe that a Government which provokes a war and deceives its people to secure their support, should be destroyed; that a Government which breaks its treaties and murders an innocent neutral nation, shooting innocent hostages to prevent sniping by those whose homes are violently attacked, should be destroyed; that a Government which systematically and repeatedly bombards unfortified towns and villages, killing hundreds of innocent women and children, should be destroyed; that a Government which torpedoes unarmed passenger ships, drowning helpless men, women, and children by the thousand in shameful defiance of law and every instinct of humanity, should be destroyed; that a Government which in cold blood executes a woman nurse like Miss Cavell should be destroyed; that a Government which ruthlessly destroys works of art and monuments of civilisation and levies crushing indemnities on captured cities, in defiance of the well-established laws of war, should be destroyed. In the opinion of Americans, a Government which did any one of these things would not be fit to exist in a civilised world. A Government which has done all of them and much more that is equally barbarous and brutal, must, in the opinion of the American people, be utterly destroyed.
Americans hoped for many long years that the German people would themselves throw off the incubus of the military Government which was crushing out their individuality and making their country an object of distrust and fear to all those interested in the progress of civilisation; but if you will not rid yourselves of the monster which has dishonoured and disgraced you before the world, then, in American opinion, the safety of the world and the future of Germany require that the present German Government shall be destroyed through military defeat. For this reason the American people are praying earnestly for Allied victory. While there is a sincere effort to maintain the technical neutrality enjoined by the President, there is no neutrality possible on the moral issues involved. Americans may not violate the neutrality of the nation by giving concerted military support to the Allies; but they are practically unanimous in giving their whole moral support to the nations engaged in the necessary task of destroying the monstrosity of Prussian militarism. Every aid which they can render the Allies without violating national neutrality is being given, not because they do not admire the German people, but because the destruction of the present German Government is regarded as the essential first step in enabling the German people to return to the place of honour they once held in the world. Americans would regard ultimate German victory as an intolerable disaster to civilisation; and they will never be satisfied until the German armies are decisively defeated. They believe that the ultimate defeat of Germany is assured, and that the least suffering will result to the German people if they will themselves repudiate the Government which brought upon them their present sufferings, and will start anew with a modern Government responsible to the will of the people.
Sincerely yours,