When I was in Paris I was surprised to see so much food and to see such a variety. Paris appeared to be as normal in this respect as Copenhagen or Rotterdam. But I was told by American women who were keeping house there that it was becoming more and more difficult to get food.
After Congress declared war it became evident for the first time that the Allies really did need war supplies and food from the United States more than they needed anything else. London and Paris officials publicly stated that this was the kind of aid the Allies really needed. It became evident, too, that the Allies not only needed the food but that they needed ships to carry supplies across the Atlantic. One of the first things President Wilson did was to approve plans for the construction of a fleet of 3,000 wooden ships practically to bridge the Atlantic.
During the first three months of 1917 submarine warfare was a success in that it so decreased the ship tonnage and the importations of the Allies that they needed American co-operation and assistance. So the United States really enters the war at the critical and decisive stage. Germany believes she can continue to sink ships faster than they can be built, but Germany did not calculate upon a fleet of wooden bottom vessels being built in the United States to make up for the losses. Germany did not expect the United States to enter the war with all the vigour and energy of the American people. Germany calculated upon internal troubles, upon opposition to the war and upon the pacifists to have America make as many mistakes as England did during the first two years of the war. But the United States has learned and profited by careful observation in Europe. Just as England's declaration of war on Germany in support of Belgium and France was a surprise to Germany; just as the shipment of war supplies by American firms to the Allies astonished Germany, so will the construction of 3,000 wooden vessels upset the calculations of the German General Staff.
While American financial assistance will be a great help to the Allies that will not affect the German calculations because when the Kaiser and his Generals decided on the 27th of January to damn all neutrals, German financiers were not consulted.
Neither did the German General Staff count upon the Russian Revolution going against them. Germany had expected a revolution there, but Germany bet upon the Czar and the Czar's German wife. As Lieutenant Colonel von Haeften, Chief Military Censor in Berlin, told the correspondents, Germany calculated upon the internal troubles in Russia aiding her. But the Allies and the people won the Russian Revolution. Germany's hopes that the Czar might again return to power or that the people might overthrow their present democratic leaders will come to naught now that America has declared war and thrown her tremendous and unlimited moral influence behind the Allies and with the Russian people.
Rear Admiral Hollweg's calculations that 24,253,615 tons of shipping remained for the world freight transmission at the beginning of 1917, did not take into consideration confiscation by the United States of nearly 2,500,000 tons of German and Austrian shipping in American ports. He did not expect the United States to build 3,000 new ships in 1917. He did not expect the United States to purchase the ships under construction in American wharves for neutral European countries.
The German submarine campaign, like all other German "successes," will be temporary. Every time the General Staff has counted upon "ultimate victory" it has failed to take into consideration the determination of the enemy. Germany believed that the world could be "knocked out" by big blows. Germany thought when she destroyed and invaded Belgium and northern France that these two countries would not be able to "come back." Germany thought when she took Warsaw and a great part of western Russia that Russia would not he able to continue the war. Germany figured that after the invasion of Roumania and Servia that these two countries would not need to be considered seriously in the future. Germany believed that her submarine campaign would be successful before the United States could come to the aid of the Allies. German hope of "ultimate victory" has been postponed ever since September, 1914, when von Kluck failed to take Paris. And Germany's hopes for an "ultimate victory" this summer before the United States can get into the war will be postponed so long that Germany will make peace not on her own terms but upon the terms which the United States of Democracy of the Whole World will dictate.
One day in Paris I met Admiral LeCaze, the Minister of Marine, in his office in the Admiralty. He discussed the submarine warfare from every angle. He said the Germans, when they figured upon so many tons of shipping and of supplies destroyed by submarines, failed to take into consideration the fact that over 100 ships were arriving daily at French ports and that over 5,000,000 tons of goods were being brought into France monthly.
When I explained to him what it appeared to me would be the object of the German ruthless campaign he said:
"Germany cannot win the war by her submarine campaign or by any other weapon. That side will win which holds out one week, one day or one hour longer than the other."