Sometimes in dealing with the Foreign Office the Ambassador used the same rough-shod methods which made the Big Stick effective during the Roosevelt Administration. At one time, Alexander Cochran, of New York, acted as special courier from the Embassy in London to Berlin. At the frontier he was arrested and imprisoned. The Ambassador heard of it, went to the Foreign Office and demanded Cochran's immediate release. The Ambassador had obtained Mr. Cochran's passports, and showed them to the Secretary of State. When Herr von Jagow asked permission to retain one of the passports so the matter could be investigated, the Ambassador said:
"All right, but first let me tear Lansing's signature off the bottom, or some one may use the passport for other purposes."
The Ambassador was not willing to take chances after it was learned and proved by the State Department that Germany was using American passports for spy purposes.
In one day alone, last fall, the American Embassy sent 92 notes to the Foreign Office, some authorised by Washington and some unauthorised, protesting against unlawful treatment of Americans, asking for reforms in prison camps, transmitting money and letters about German affairs in Entente countries, and other matters which were under discussion between Berlin and Washington. At one time an American woman instructor in Roberts' College was arrested at Warnemuende and kept for weeks from communicating with the Ambassador. When he heard of it he went to the Foreign Office daily, demanding her release, which he finally secured.
Mr. Gerard's work in bettering conditions in prison camps, especially at Ruhleben, will be long remembered. When conditions were at their worst he went out daily to keep himself informed, and then daily went to the Foreign Office or wrote to the Ministry of War in an effort to get better accommodations for the men. One day he discovered eleven prominent English civilians, former respected residents in Berlin, living in a box stall similar to one which his riding horse had occupied in peace times. This so aroused the Ambassador that he volunteered to furnish funds for the construction of a new barracks in case the Government was not willing to do it. But the Foreign Office and the War Ministry and other officials shifted authority so often that it was impossible to get changes made. The Ambassador decided to have his reports published in a drastic effort to gain relief for the prisoners. The State Department granted the necessary authority and his descriptions of Ruhleben were published in the United States and England, arousing such a world-wide storm of indignation that the German Government changed the prison conditions and made Ruhleben fit for men for the first time since the beginning of the war.
This activity of the Ambassador aroused a great deal of bitterness and the Government decided to try to have him recalled. The press censorship instigated various newspapers to attack the Ambassador so that Germany might be justified in asking for his recall, but the attack failed for the simple reason that there was no evidence against the Ambassador except that he had been too vigorous in insisting upon livable prison camp conditions.
I have pointed out in previous chapters some of the things which President Wilson's notes accomplished in Germany during the war. Suppose the Kaiser were to grant certain reforms, would this destroy the possibilities of a free Germany, a democratic nation--a German Republic!
The German people were given an opportunity to debate and think about international issues while we maintained relations with Berlin, but as I pointed out, the Kaiser and his associates are masters of German psychology and during the next few months they may temporarily undo what we accomplished during two years. Americans must remember that at the present time all the leading men of Germany are preaching to the people the gospel of submarine success, and the anti-American campaign there is being conducted unhindered and unchallenged. The United States and the Allies have pledged their national honour and existence to defeat and discredit the Imperial German Government and nothing but unfaltering determination, no matter what the Kaiser does, will bring success. Unless he is defeated, the Kaiser will not follow the Czar's example.
In May of this year the German Government believed it was winning the war. Berlin believed it would decisively defeat our Allies before Fall. But even if the people of Germany again compel their Government to propose peace and the Kaiser announces that he is in favour of such drastic reforms as making his Ministry responsible to the Reichstag, this (though it might please the German people) cannot, must not, satisfy us. Only a firm refusal of the Allies will accomplish what we have set out to do--overthrow the present rulers and dictators of Germany. This must include not only the Kaiser but Field Marshal von Hindenburg and the generals in control of the army, the Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, who did not keep his promises to the United States and the naval leaders who have been intriguing and fighting for war with America for over two years. Only a decisive defeat of Germany will make Germany a republic, and the task is stupendous enough to challenge the best combined efforts of the United States and all the Allies.