JEKYLL AND HYDE
Herr von Rintelen, having dropped the guise of E. V. Gasche, immediately began to play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll, visiting the Yacht Club, and calling upon wealthy friends, proved a more charming, more delightful von Rintelen than ever, meeting influential business men who were selling supplies to the Allies. He was presented to society matrons and débutantes, whom, by flattery and subtlety, he sought to use to further his purposes. To these, he was Herr von Rintelen in America on an important financial mission. But occasionally, he made wild boasts of plans. As a typical Mr. Hyde he sought information from von Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-Ed, about the production of war supplies. Astounded by what he learned from them and corroborated from other sources, he began to realize how utterly he had misjudged America’s potential resources and what a blunder he had made in his statement to the General War Staff.
Within a brief time von Rintelen realized, with a vividness that chilled him, the capacity of America to hand war materials to the Allies and her rapidly increasing facilities to turn out still more ammunition and bullets. The facts which he obtained struck him with triple force because of the knowledge he had about the war moves. It is upon a basis of the supplies of munitions in the Allied countries, particularly Russia, as von Rintelen knew them, that his acts are best judged and upon this basis only can sane motives be assigned to the rash projects which he launched.
He understood these three striking facts thoroughly: (1) that the German drive on Paris had failed because in two months the Germans had used up ammunition they confidently expected to last a half a year; (2) that the English and French in the west could not take up the offensive because ammunition was not being turned out fast enough; and (3) that the Russian drive on Germany and Austria would soon fail for lack of arms and bullets.
In the winter and spring of 1915 the Russians had made a drive into Galicia and Austria, hurling the Austrians and Germans back. In May they had advanced victoriously through the first range of the Carpathian mountains. Meantime the German General Staff, as von Rintelen knew, was preparing for a big offensive against the Russians. The War Staff knew of Russia’s limited capacity to produce arms and ammunition, knew that during the winter with the port of Archangel closed by ice, her only source for new supplies lay in the single-track Siberian railway, bringing material from Japan. He realized that by spring the Russian resources would well nigh be exhausted, and that with the beginning of the projected Austro-German offensive the crucial necessity lay in shutting off supplies from Russia. He knew that England and France could not help her, and, therefore, the American source must be cut off absolutely. But spring had already come, ships were sailing for Archangel laden with American explosives, shells and cartridges.