Germany, The Next Republic?

by Carl W. Ackerman

As the submarine warfare became more and more a critical issue German feeling towards the United States changed. I found that men who were openly professing their friendship for the United States were secretly doing everything within their power to intimidate America. The Government began to feel as if the American factories which were supplying the Allies were as much subject to attack as similar factories in Allied countries. I recall one time learning at the American Embassy that a man named Wulf von Igel had asked Ambassador Gerard for a safe conduct, on the ground that he was going to the United States to try and have condensed milk shipped to Germany for the children. Mr. Gerard refused to ask Washington to grant this man a safe conduct. I did not learn until several months afterwards that Herr von Igel had been asked to go to the United States by Under Secretary of State Zimmermann for one of two purposes, either he was to purchase a controlling interest in the Du Pont Powder Mills no matter what that cost, or he was to stir up dissatisfaction in Mexico. Zimmermann gave him a card of introduction to Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador in Washington, and told him that the German Embassy would supply him with all necessary funds.

Carrying out the German idea that it was right to harm or destroy American property which was directly or indirectly aiding the Allies, both Germany and Austria-Hungary published notices that their citizens in the United States were not permitted to work in such factories. And plots which Captains Boy-Ed and von Papen instigated here were done with the approval and encouragement of the German Government. If any proof is needed for this statement, in addition to that already published, it is that both of these men upon their return to Germany were regarded as heroes and given the most trusted positions. Captain Boy-Ed was placed at the head of the Intelligence Department of the Navy and Captain von Papen was assigned to the Headquarters of the General Commanding the operations on the Somme.

As the food situation in Germany became worse the disposition of the people changed still more. The Government had already pointed out in numerous public statements that the United States was not neutral because it overlooked the English blockade and thought only about the German submarine war. So as food difficulties developed the people blamed the United States and held President Wilson personally responsible for the growing shortages within Germany. The people believed Mr. Wilson was their greatest enemy and that he was the man most to be feared. How strong this feeling was not only among the people but in Government circles was to be shown later when Germany announced her submarine campaign.

As was pointed out in a previous chapter while Germany was arguing against shipments of war munitions from the United States she was herself responsible for the preparations which Russia and Roumania had made against her, but this proof of deception on the part of the Government was never explained to the German people. Furthermore the people were never told why the United States asked for the recall of Germany's two attaches who were implicated in spy plots. Nothing was ever published in the German newspapers about Herr von Igel. The newspapers always published despatches which told of the destruction of ammunition factories by plotters, but never about the charges against and arrests of German reservists. Just as the German Government has never permitted the people to know that it prepared for a war against nine nations, as the document I saw in the Chief Telegraph Office shows, so has it not explained to the people the real motives and the real arguments which President Wilson presented in his many submarine notes. Whenever these notes were published in the German newspapers the Government always published an official explanation, or correspondents were inspired to write the Government views, so the people could not think for themselves or come to honest personal conclusions.

The effectiveness of Mr. Wilson's diplomacy against Germany was decreased by some German-Americans, and the fact that the United States is to-day at war with Germany is due to this blundering on the behalf of some of those over-zealous citizens who, being so anxious to aid Germany, became anti-Wilson and in the long run defeated what they set out to accomplish. Had the German Government not been assured by some German-Americans that they would never permit President Wilson to break diplomatic relations or go to war, had these self-appointed envoys stayed away from Berlin, the relations between the United States and Germany might to-day be different than they are. Because if Germany at the outset of the submarine negotiations had been given the impression by a united America that the President spoke for the country, Germany would undoubtedly have given up all hope of a ruthless submarine warfare.

I think President Wilson and Mr. Gerard realised that the activities of the German-Americans here were not only interfering with the diplomatic negotiations but that the German-Americans were acting against their own best interests if they really desired peace with Germany.

When some of the President's friends saw that the German people were receiving such biased news from the United States and that Germany had no opportunity of learning the real sentiment here, nor of sounding the depth of American indignation over the Lusitania they endeavoured to get despatches from the United States to Germany to enlighten the people. Mr. Roy W. Howard, President of the United Press, endeavoured several times while I was in Berlin to get unadulterated American news in the German newspapers, but the German Government was not overly anxious to have such information published. It was too busy encouraging the anti-American sentiment for the purpose of frightening the United States. It was difficult, too, for the United Press to get the necessary co-operation in the United States for this news service. After the settlement of the _Sussex_ dispute the Democratic newspapers of Germany, those which were supporting the Chancellor, were anxious to receive reports from here, but the German Foreign Office would not encourage the matter to the extent of using the wireless towers at Sayville and Tuckerton as means of transmitting the news.

How zealously the Foreign Office censor guards what appears in the German newspapers was shown about two weeks before diplomatic relations were broken. When the announcement was wirelessed to the United States that Germany had adopted the von Tirpitz blockade policy the United Press sent me a number of daily bulletins telling what the American Press, Congressmen and the Government were thinking and saying about the new order. The first day these despatches reached me I sent them to several of the leading newspapers only to be notified in less than an hour afterward by the Foreign Office that I was to send no information to the German newspapers without first sending it to the Foreign Office. Two days after the blockade order was published I received a telegram from Mr. Howard saying that diplomatic relations would be broken, and giving me a summary of the press comment. I took this despatch to the Foreign Office and asked permission to send it to the newspapers. It was refused. Throughout this crisis which lasted until the 10th of February the Foreign Office would not permit a single despatch coming direct from America to be printed in the German newspapers. The Foreign Office preferred to have the newspapers publish what came by way of England and France so that the Government could always explain that only English and French news could reach Germany because the United States was not interested in seeing that Germany obtained first hand information.

While Germany was arguing that the United States was responsible for her desperate situation, economically, and while President Wilson was being blamed for not breaking the Allied blockade, the German Foreign Office was doing everything within its power to prevent German goods from being shipped to the United States. When, through the efforts of Ambassador Gerard, numerous attempts were made to get German goods, including medicines and dye-stuffs, to the United States, the German Government replied that these could not leave the country unless an equal amount of goods were sent to Germany. Then, when the State Department arranged for an equal amount of American goods to be shipped in exchange the German Foreign Office said all these goods would have to be shipped to and from German ports. When the State Department listened to this demand and American steamers were started on their way to Hamburg and Bremen the German Navy was so busy sewing mines off these harbours to keep the English fleet away that they failed to notify the American skippers where the open channels were. As a result so many American ships were sunk trying to bring goods into German harbours that it became unprofitable for American shippers to try to accommodate Germany.

About this time, also, the German Government began its policy of discouraging American business in Germany. Ambassador Gerard had had a long wrangle with the Chancellor over a bill which was introduced in the Reichstag shortly after the beginning of the war to purchase all foreign oil properties "within the German Customs Union." The bill was examined by Mr. Gerard, who, for a number of years, was a Supreme Court Judge of New York. He discovered that the object of the bill was to put the Standard Oil Company out of business by purchasing all of this company's property except that located in Hamburg. This was the joker. Hamburg was not in the German Customs Union and the bill provided for the confiscation of all property not in this Union.