THREATENING CLOUDS OF WAR
Sinister tension in the international air—The Hague Treaties—Germany's opposition to satisfactory understandings—New spirit of international good-will gains popular momentum—A conference with Secretary Hay—The Senate jealous of its authority; the treaties are not submitted—My address before the New York Peace Society—Other addresses on world peace—Carnegie's notable efforts—My lectures at the United States Naval War College at Newport—Conflicts of sovereignty respecting naturalized citizens—The Lake Mohonk Conferences—The American Society of International Law is founded—Distinguished speakers at first annual meeting—The Society's growth and permanence—Roosevelt astounds the world by sending the fleet around the world—The homecoming of the fleet—Opposition to free tolls for American ships in coastwise trade—The Mexican problem and my suggestions to the President as to how to meet it—Italy makes war on Turkey for Tripoli—Other Powers fail to grasp their opportunity to effect peaceful adjustment—My protests and warnings are published by "The Outlook"—The outburst of wars in the Balkans—Germany's ruthless aggressive policy is disclosed.
The ominous clouds, visible from time to time on the diplomatic horizon during my last mission to Turkey, had latterly expanded from only local significance into implications of greater and more sinister magnitude. It had accordingly grown more and more apparent to me that the tinder box of Europe, the Eastern Question, was likely to burst into flames at almost any moment; and, in common with other close observers, I was not unaware of an inscrutable and widespread tension in the international air.
It seemed to many of us that America, which had so long remained wrapped rather complacently in its cloak of isolation, might have a stern duty to perform, not only to itself, but to the rest of the world. That duty seemed to us to involve the immediate need of a more vigorous promotion of world peace and of the specific and definite designing and constructing of a proper machinery of enforcement.
In 1899, and again in 1907, to be sure, we had taken a leading part in the two Hague Peace Conferences, at the first of which twenty-six, and in the second of which forty-four, nations participated. These nations had signed and ratified the various treaties formulated by the two conferences. The first conference was called by the Emperor of Russia. Its main purpose, as stated in the Russian note proposing the conference, was by means of international discussion and agreement to provide the most effective means for ensuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and lasting peace, and, above all, to limit the progressive development of armaments.
Soon after the conference assembled, it was found that no agreement could be reached respecting the limitation of armaments, whereupon the attention of the delegates was chiefly directed to formulating plans for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. This resulted in the adoption of a treaty of arbitration entitled: "Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes." The American, the British, and the delegates of several other leading Powers favored an agreement for compulsory arbitration of all matters of a juridical nature; but this was opposed at the first conference by Germany,[2] and again at the second conference. The treaty, however, in a modified and purely optional form, was adopted, though it fell short, by reason of Germany's opposition, of much that it was hoped to attain; yet it was a distinct gain in providing definite machinery for the maintenance of peace and the adjustment of international differences by peaceful means.
In the development of international relations, in case of the threat of war or of actual war, it was regarded as an unfriendly act for outside Powers to tender good offices or to mediate in the cause of peace. This unfortunate and unrighteous condition was radically changed and indeed reversed by the treaty; the signatories agreed not only to have recourse to the good offices or mediation of friendly Powers, but agreed also that such Powers should on their own initiative tender such good offices to the States at variance, and that such overtures should never be regarded as an unfriendly act by either of the parties in dispute. Especially in our country and in Great Britain, these treaties awakened anew the spirit of international justice and good-will, and there ensued many meetings designed to inform and stimulate popular interest in the cause of world peace.
John W. Foster, former Secretary of State, who had been in New York a short time before as a member of a committee to provide for a public meeting urging the ratification of the arbitration treaties, had made an appointment for me to meet Secretary Hay for a conference regarding them. I met Mr. Foster at the Cosmos Club and went with him to meet Mr. Hay at the latter's residence. Hay, as usual, met us in his gracious way and we discussed the subject from all sides. My main concern was that these little arbitration treaties, which excepted questions of "vital interest and national honor," should not have the effect of abridging the broader provisions of the Hague Treaty. I had brought with me a draft of a treaty which guarded against such contingencies, with which Mr. Foster seemed to be in agreement.
Hay said he fully caught my idea, but that it had been desired to make all of these treaties alike and to conform with the one between France and Great Britain. He said it would be difficult enough, as it was, to get these treaties through the Senate, as there was considerable opposition, and therefore it was advisable to have these treaties with the several Powers identical; otherwise separate arguments would be made against each of the treaties. The Secretary asked me, however, to leave with him the draft I had prepared, saying that it might prove very useful to him.
The final upshot was that these treaties, to which Hay had devoted so much care and thought during his last months in Washington, and by which he hoped to lessen the likelihood of war throughout the world, were violently opposed in the Senate on the ground that they deprived it of its constitutional rights. Senators Knox and Spooner and their followers took the view that every separate agreement to arbitrate under these treaties must be submitted to the Senate. An amendment to this effect emasculated the main purposes of the treaty and left the subject of arbitration substantially as it would be without any treaties. As Hay stated, Roosevelt saw the situation plainly enough and decided not to submit the treaties for ratification by the other Powers.
On my return home from Turkey, the New York Peace Society, of which I had been the president until I entered the Cabinet in 1906, and whose membership and activities had been very much enlarged under my successor, Andrew Carnegie, gave me a reception on January 7, 1910, at the Hotel Plaza, in New York. Mr. Carnegie, who was earnestly and intensely devoted to the cause of international peace, and who had donated the necessary money for the construction of the Peace Palace at The Hague, presided at this reception, and made one of his characteristic addresses. The subject of my talk was "The Threatening Clouds of War," as they appeared to me to be gathering in the Near East and in the Balkans.
It seemed to me that the most timely public service I could possibly render during this period was to help arouse public opinion to a sense of the imperative need of a newer view of world relations, and a genuine public demand for an international understanding and machinery with which peace might be maintained.
"World Peace" was therefore my subject when, on April 13th of the same year, the Authors' Club tendered me a dinner "in recognition of my public services at home and abroad." It was presided over by the veteran author and publisher, Henry Holt, who nominated Mr. Carnegie as toastmaster. Speeches were made by our ambassador to Berlin, David Jayne Hill, by Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Slicer, Edward M. Shepard, Professor William P. Trent, of Columbia University, and several others.
Though the Authors' Club has a comparatively small membership, limited to members of the craft, yet there have sprung from its ranks a number of our most eminent diplomatists, such as John Hay, Andrew D. White, General Horace Porter, David Jayne Hill, Dr. Henry van Dyke, Seth Low, and Frederick W. Holls. The last two were delegates to the First Hague Peace Conference.
Determined to make the most of the growing popular agitation for the promotion of international arbitration and peace, Mr. Carnegie soon afterwards organized a great peace meeting which was held in Carnegie Hall, New York City. The big hall was packed from pit to dome, and thousands were unable to gain admission. The meeting was opened by Mr. Carnegie, as presiding officer, and he was followed by Baron d'Estournelles de Constant. In my address I specially emphasized neutral duties in time of war and the inhibition upon neutrals to lend money to belligerents pending war as being quite as much an unneutral act as the selling of ships of war and armaments, as had been usually the case in the past when money thus borrowed was used for that very purpose.
During the years 1903, 1904, and 1905, I devoted much attention to questions affecting international relations. I was invited by Admiral Chadwick, president of the United States Naval War College at Newport, to deliver several lectures during the summer of 1903, and took for my subject the protection of our citizens abroad, and surveyed the entire subject of citizenship, native-born and naturalized. I pointed out that by the law of July 27, 1868, it was specifically provided that naturalized citizens while in foreign states shall receive from our Government the same protection as to their persons and property that is accorded to native-born citizens in like circumstances. All the European countries denied the right of expatriation, while America from the beginning had insisted upon that right as one of its basic elements of liberty.
In several notable instances, our Navy had taken prompt action to uphold American rights. One such case was that of Martin Coszta, a Hungarian insurgent in the revolution of 1848-49, who escaped to Turkey and from there came to the United States and made the usual declaration preparatory to being naturalized under our laws. He returned to Turkey in 1854, and at Smyrna he was seized while on shore and taken up by the crew of an Austrian frigate and put in irons. Before the boat got under way, an American frigate arrived and threatened to sink the Austrian vessel unless Coszta was released. This led to an agreement under which he was put in the custody of the French consul-general.
It is of the highest importance that the men of our Navy, especially those in command of ships, should be conversant with the principles of international law, as they are frequently called upon to act promptly. This conflict of sovereignty respecting naturalized citizens caused the war between us and Great Britain in 1812. Beginning with 1868, we concluded treaties of naturalization with the German States and Austria-Hungary, and subsequently with most of the other States.
My address was subsequently published in the quarterly proceedings of the College of March, 1904. The following year I delivered another address before the College on international relations specifically with reference to Russia and the United States. This address was likewise published in the proceedings of the Naval War College, and with some modifications appeared in the "North American Review" of August, 1905.
For a number of years many of the leading men of the country who were interested in international relations were annually, at the beginning of the summer, the guests of Messrs. Smiley at their noted hotel at Lake Mohonk. These gatherings were known as the Lake Mohonk Conferences on International Arbitration, lasted several days, and addresses were made upon various international subjects.
At the conference of 1905, it occurred to some of the members who were in attendance, who had long entertained the idea that an American society devoted exclusively to the interests of international law should be formed, that, in view of the large attendance that year of many prominent men interested in the subject, it would be a propitious time to organize. James Brown Scott, Professor of International Law at Columbia University, and Professor George W. Kirchwey, Dean of the Law School of the University, were most active in promoting the idea. A preliminary meeting was called, and about fifty of the gentlemen in attendance at the conference took part. They elected me as chairman, Professor James Brown Scott as secretary, and appointed a committee of twenty-one to effect a permanent organization. The committee so appointed consisted of the following: Chandler P. Anderson, James B. Angell, Professor Joseph H. Beale, Jr., David J. Brewer, Charles Henry Butler, J. M. Dickinson, John W. Foster, George Gray, Professor Charles Noble Gregory, John W. Griggs, Professor George W. Kirchwey, Robert Lansing, Professor John Bassett Moore, W. W. Morrow, Professor Leo S. Rowe, Professor James B. Scott, Oscar S. Straus, Everett P. Wheeler, Andrew D. White, Professor George G. Wilson, and Theodore S. Woolsey.
The American Society of International Law was formally organized on January 12, 1906. Back of its founding was the firm belief that the influence of an association of publicists and others, organized along the lines indicated, would count for much in the formation of a sound and rational body of doctrine concerning the true principles of international relations.
The following editorial comment regarding this organization is quoted from the January, 1907, issue of "The American Journal of International Law":
While the necessity of such a society was felt by many, no serious steps were taken until the summer of 1905. It occurred to some of the members of the Mohonk Lake conference on international arbitration, that a society devoted exclusively to the interests of international law as distinct from international arbitration might be formed and that the members of the Mohonk Conference would supply a nucleus membership. Accordingly a call was issued to the members present at the conference, and as the result of the call and meeting of those interested a committee was appointed with Oscar S. Straus as chairman and James B. Scott as secretary, to consider plans for a definite organization and for the publication of a journal exclusively devoted to international law as the organ of the Society. On December 9th, 1905, a meeting of the committee was held at the residence of Oscar S. Straus in New York City, and as the result of favorable reports of the members present it appeared feasible to proceed immediately to the definitive organization of the Society. Accordingly a call was issued by the chairman for a meeting of those interested in international law and its popularization, to be held at the New York Bar Association, on Friday, January 12th, 1906.
At this meeting it was decided to organize upon a permanent basis a society of those interested in the spread of international law with its ideals of justice and therefore of peace; a constitution was adopted; officers were elected and the Society took its place, it is hoped, permanently among the learned and influential societies of the world.
On April 19 and 20, 1907, was held the first annual meeting of the American Society of International Law, at Washington, which was attended by an unexpectedly large number of members. The society had grown, in the short time since its organization, to a membership of over five hundred. The various sessions were devoted to discussions of international topics, and closed with a banquet presided over by Secretary Root, and addresses were made by several speakers, including two former Secretaries of State, namely, Richard Olney and John W. Foster, as well as by James Bryce, General Horace Porter, and the writer.
To-day the society has more than twelve hundred members, and since 1907 it has regularly held annual meetings and issued its quarterly publication, "The American Journal of International Law." Since the beginning, Elihu Root has been the president, with whom are associated as vice-presidents and members of the executive council more than forty of the leading writers and authorities, Senators and judges, including the Chief Justice of the United States. I still am the chairman of the executive committee, of which Professor Scott has from the beginning been the recording secretary, as well as the editor-in-chief of the "Journal." An analytical index of the fourteen volumes of the "Journal" (1907-20) has recently been prepared by George A. Finch, secretary of the board of editors.
While these various groups were pressing forward on their respective avenues of approach to a better understanding between nations, President Roosevelt was applying his energies to the problem in his own way. His method was in this instance characterized by a strikingly objective and dramatic treatment. He firmly believed that the greater power a peaceful nation has to make war in a world threatened by war, the greater becomes its power to command peace. The peace societies will not endorse this contention; but the history of international relations gives force to that proposition. Such are international amenities, paradoxical as it may appear.
Roosevelt's terse message to a world threatened by war was to send a great fleet of battleships on a voyage round the world.
The fleet was scheduled to return to Hampton Roads on Washington's birthday, February 22, 1908. It was to be reviewed on its arrival by the President. Admiral Adolph Marix, the chairman of the Lighthouse Board in my Department, in the tender Maple took my wife and me, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Hockstader, my son-in-law and daughter, and several officials of the Department to Hampton Roads, and we steamed out to the tail of the Horse Shoe some ten miles from Old Point Comfort. At the appointed time, eleven o'clock that day, Admiral Sperry in his flagship Connecticut passed in review before the President, and following him came the twenty-four battleships consisting of the sixteen ships that went around the Horn, and eight additional ones, most of which had been completed since the squadron had left the Atlantic on this voyage sixteen months before. These ships had steamed 42,000 miles without any hitch or any casualty, or any untoward circumstance.
When the President first decided that this trip should be made, all kinds of hostile criticism bristled in the press of the country. But the President, with his usual alertness, had several far-sighted purposes in view. He says in his "Autobiography": "At that time, as I happened to know neither the English nor the German authorities believed it possible to take a fleet of great battleships around the world, I made up my mind that it was time to have a show-down in the matter; because if it was really true that our fleet could not get from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it was much better to know it and be able to shape our policy in view of the knowledge."
The great show of naval strength on the part of the United States that this voyage illustrated naturally had its effect throughout the world. A strength that is not menacing tends to allay menace. And in this instance the visit of the fleet to Japan was promptly interpreted by the Japanese as one of courtesy and good-will. The President, again and again in his public utterances, as well as in his private statements at Cabinet meetings, had emphasized his view that a strong navy makes for peace. And toasting the admirals and captains in the cabin of the Mayflower, he exclaimed:
"Isn't it magnificent? Nobody after this will forget that the American coast is on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic!"
The home-coming of the fleet was a most imposing sight. The weather was beautiful, and altogether the function appeared as calm and peaceful as if it had been a magnificent pleasure excursion, which indeed it had proved to be.
On my return to America in the fall of 1913, there were two notable questions that occupied the attention of President Wilson and Congress, in which as a private citizen I had taken some part. I was soon invited by the National Republican Club to take part in a luncheon discussion of "Present World Problems," and this enabled me to discuss a subject that had resulted in a plank in the National Platform of the Progressive Party, "that American ships engaged in coastwise trade shall pay no tolls." As this question did not arise in the New York State campaign, I had had no occasion to discuss it except on one occasion when I was asked what my stand was upon that subject, and I plainly stated that I did not favor the remission of tolls, as it conflicted with the spirit, if not with the express wording, of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, and that I would only favor it in the event the question were left to arbitration and decided in our favor. In this discussion I went somewhat fully into the subject, making it clear why I was not in favor of free tolls, and why I supported the President in the stand that he had taken for repeal of the act that freed our coastwise ships from such tolls.
Others who spoke at this luncheon on various phases of the general problem were William L. Mackenzie King, at this writing the Premier of Canada, and Miss Mabel T. Boardman, representing the American Red Cross.
In April the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals held hearings upon an act to amend the Panama Canal Act repealing the provision providing for freeing coastwise American ships from tolls. Upon invitation I appeared before this committee and supported the position that the President had taken, in opposition to the provisions of the platform of his party, for the repeal of the free tolls clause. Upon the urgent request of the President, the repealing act was passed. Some of our ablest Senators, regardless of party, took opposing sides upon this question. Elihu Root, who was then Senator, presented, in my judgment, the most convincing argument and the ablest speech of his distinguished career in the Senate, advocating the repeal of the free tolls clause.
Another international subject which I was carefully studying at this time was our relations with Mexico. I felt then, as I do now, that our Government has often been badly served and wrongly advised in regard to affairs in Mexico. I suggested to the President that he should send to Mexico a commission of experienced men who could in a comparatively short time lay before him the true conditions as a guide for our governmental action. I pointed out that under circumstances different, but no less perplexing, this plan had been adopted by Cleveland during the Venezuela trouble, and that the appointment of that commission, of which Justice Brewer of the Supreme Court was chairman, had hastened the solution. When the idea of the United States sending a commission such as I recommended became publicly known, it was favorably received by General Huerta, the then President of Mexico, as well as by Carranza. The appointment of such a commission would have had the additional effect of offsetting the pressure in Congress for intervention, and several of the leading Senators expressed themselves as favoring it.
When storm clouds are rushing across the sky, it is very difficult to foretell where the lightning will strike. It is needless here to discuss the professed but spurious reasons why Italy declared war upon Turkey in 1911. It was evident that no casus belli existed in any international sense. The naked fact was that Italy determined to have a slice of northern Africa, and was favored in that craving by several of the Great Powers, chiefly to prevent Germany from getting a foothold on the Mediterranean. I knew from my observations in Turkey that this aggressive action on the part of Italy would far transcend the interest of either Italy or Turkey, and would inevitably arouse the restless Balkan Powers to action.
In a communication that I sent to Secretary of State Knox on September 29, 1911, attention was directed to what would probably be the outcome of this action on the part of Italy; also that the Hague Treaty not only sanctioned, but made it morally incumbent upon Powers that were strangers to the dispute, to tender their good offices for the purpose of a peaceful adjustment. Just because the United States could not be accused of having any direct interest, such an offer could have been made with best grace by our country. If ever there had been a war of conquest, that was one. One of the London papers had frankly criticized Italy's precipitous act as that of "pirate, brigand, and buccaneer."
In an article written for "The Outlook" following a number of public addresses upon the same subject, I pointed out that Turkey, both immediately before and since hostilities began, had appealed to the Christian nations of the world, who were co-signatories with her of the Hague Treaty, to use their good offices for peace, but the Christian nations had declined to act. In this article I stated:
So far as it opens an era possibly of the gravest menace to Europe, it is primarily of European concern; but in so far as the provisions of the Peace Treaty are disregarded by neutral Powers, this is a grave moral loss no less for us than for all nations, the magnitude of which is not lessened, but increased by the fact that Christian Italy is making an unprovoked war upon a Mohammedan Power. The efforts to bring about a peaceful adjustment under the circumstances is not only a moral right, but a right under the Convention in which Turkey, Italy, and the United States are equally signatories with the other forty-one nations.
The international moral damage this war entails is the concern of all nations. The manner in which it was precipitated without first having recourse to the enlightened methods of peaceful adjustment, combined with the concerted refusal of European Powers to attempt mediation, will make peace treaties waste paper, and peace professions of civilized nations sham and hypocrisy.
In quick succession this war was followed in 1912 by the first Balkan war against Turkey, and then in 1913 by the second Balkan war, between the Balkan nations themselves to divide the spoils. For thirty years the Treaty of Berlin (1878) had served to maintain European peace. The first breach was the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria. The second was the Italian-Turkish war, followed by the Balkan wars. The toll of these latter wars entailed a sacrifice of 300,000 dead or permanently disabled on the field of battle; and the immediate consequence was to upset "the balance of power" so that the Great Powers at once heavily extended their armies and navies, and their budgets ran wild.
Probably the most illuminating document concerning the conditions that led up to the World War is the Lichnowsky Memorandum which is entitled: "My London Mission, 1912-1914." I had known Prince Lichnowsky when he was one of the secretaries of the German Embassy during my first mission to Turkey. He was appointed ambassador to England after the death of Baron Marschall in September, 1912. This memorandum was prepared as a personal record during the second year of the war, and, after being privately circulated, was, by design or otherwise, published. It is the most convincing indictment of Germany's ruthless aggressive policy, and it naturally brought down upon its author the severest condemnation of the Emperor and the militarists. Germany's reiterated claim that Great Britain, having designed Germany's destruction, sought to justify the large increase of her navy, was disproved by her own ambassador.
The events that resolved themselves into the World War, as well as the World War itself, are most convincing proofs that the preservation of peace is a matter of common interest to the entire family of nations, and that it must not be left to a single member of this group to disturb the world's peace at will.