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.