"It is too sad that your Government should have declared the unrestricted U-boat war at a moment when we were so near to peace. The day will come when people in Germany will see how much you have done for your country in America."
Moreover, later on, Mr. Bonar Law publicly admitted in the English Parliament that Great Britain would have collapsed financially, if American help had not saved her. The war-spirit in France, during the year 1917 was simply upheld by the hope of American help, and finally, in March, the Russian Revolution broke out. If we had accepted Wilson's mediation, the whole of American influence in Russia would have been exercised in favor of peace, and not, as events ultimately proved, against ourselves. Out of Wilson's and Kerensky's Peace programme, we might, by means of diplomatic negotiations, easily have achieved all that we regarded as necessary. My conviction that we could in the year 1917 have obtained a peace which would have been acceptable to ourselves, is based not so much on Wilson's good will, as upon the fact that, without American help, the Entente could not possibly have achieved a victory.
Against this view, the argument is advanced that the United States would in any case have entered the war, in order to avoid a German victory. I have already pointed out, that according to my view, no "German Peace" was any longer possible after the first battle of the Marne. Besides, it was precisely the object of the policy which was directed at American mediation, to prevent the United States from entering the war.
At the present time, even Mr. Wilson himself is produced as crown-witness in support of the view that America would have entered the war against us whatever might have happened. In the discussions about the Peace Treaty, which the President held in the White House on the 19th August, 1919, much stress is laid upon a certain passage in particular, which gives the impression that Mr. Wilson would have wished America to enter the war, even if Germany had not declared the unrestricted U-boat campaign. Almost without exception, all the German national newspapers interpreted the short dialogue in question between the President and Senator McCumber in this way, and the Deutsche Tageszeitung even went so far as to regard it as a striking proof of what they called Wilson's "a priori resolve to have war with Germany."
I must most emphatically reject this interpretation of the passage under discussion, which was turned to account by some papers in America in the political fight.
In the first place I should like to point out that it is obviously inadmissible to take the above-mentioned passage out of the context, and to regard it in itself as an interchange of views between Mr. Wilson and Mr. McCumber. It ought, on the contrary, to be judged in conjunction with the passage that precedes it.
The proposition for discussion was the President's motion that the League of Nations made it obligatory upon all States united, under it, to take common action against any country guilty of a breach of international law. Senator Harding, one of the keenest opponents of the League of Nations, suggested the idea in the debate that it was impossible for a sovereign State like the United States of America to have her moral obligation in any international conflict dictated to her by an external body consisting of the Council of the League of Nations. Driven into a corner, Mr. Wilson had to acknowledge this fact; but he emphasized the point that in spite of this the value of the League of Nations was in no way impaired. He said:
"The American Republic is not in need of any advice from any quarter, in order to fulfil her moral duty; but she stabilizes the whole world by promising in advance that she will stand by other nations who regard matters in the same light as herself, in order to uphold Justice in the world."
Following upon this, Senator McCumber then tried to confute the President's theory, by applying it practically to the most recent events in the world's history. He referred to the last war, at the outbreak of which there was no League of Nations in existence, and the following discussion took place:
McCumber: Would our moral conviction of the injustice of the German war have drawn us into this war, if Germany had been guilty of no aggressive acts, and, what is more, without the League of Nations, for of course we had no League of Nations then?