My Four Years in Germany

by James W. Gerard

It was very lucky that I discovered the existence of this Dumba cablegram in this manner which savours almost of diplomacy as represented on the stage. If the Germans had gone on in the belief that the Lusitania Note was not really meant, war would have inevitably resulted at that time between Germany and America, and it shows how great events may be shaped by heavy luncheons and a pretty woman.

Before this time much indignation had been caused in Germany by the fact that the Lusitania on her eastward voyage from New York early in February, 1915, had raised the American flag when nearing British waters.

Shortly after this incident had become known, I was at the Wintergarten, a large concert hall in Berlin, with Grant Smith, First Secretary of the Embassy at Vienna and other members of my staff. We naturally spoke English among ourselves, a fact which aroused the ire of a German who had been drinking heavily and who was seated in the next box. He immediately began to call out that some one was speaking English and when told by one of the attendants that it was the American Ambassador, he immediately cried in a loud voice that Americans were even worse than English and that the Lusitania had been flying the American flag as protection in British waters.

The audience, however, took sides against him and told him to shut up and as I left the house at the close of the performance, some Germans spoke to me and apologised for his conduct. The next day the manager of the Wintergarten called on me also to express his regret for the occurrence.

About a year afterwards I was at the races one day and saw this man and asked him what he meant by making such a noise at the Wintergarten. He immediately apologised and said that he had been drinking and hoped that I would forget the incident. This was the only incident of the kind which occurred to me during all the time that I was in Germany.

Both before and after the sinking of the Lusitania, the German Foreign Office put forward all kinds of proposals with reference to American ships in the war zone. On one afternoon, Zimmermann, who had a number of these proposals drafted in German, showed them to me and I wrote down the English translation for him to see how it would look in English. These proposals were about the sailing from America of what might be called certified ships, the ships to be painted and striped in a distinctive way, to come from certified ports at certain certified times, America to agree that these ships should carry no contraband whatever. All these proposals were sternly rejected by the President.

On February sixteenth, the German answer to our note of February tenth had announced that Germany declined all responsibility for what might happen to neutral ships and, in addition, announced that mines would be allowed in waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland. This note also contained one of Zimmermann's proposed solutions, namely, that American warships should convoy American merchantmen.

The German note of the sixteenth also spoke about the great traffic in munitions from the United States to the Allies, and contained a suggestion that the United States should induce the Allies to adopt the Declaration of London and omit the importation not only of food but also of all raw materials into Germany.

February twentieth was the date of the conciliatory note addressed by President Wilson to both Great Britain and Germany; and contained the suggestion that submarines should not be employed against merchant vessels of any nationality and that food should be allowed to go through for the civil population of Germany consigned to the agencies named by the United States in Germany, which were to see that the food was received and distributed to the civil population.

In the meantime the mines on the German coast had destroyed two American ships, both loaded with cotton for Germany; one called the Carib and the other the Evelyn.