My Four Years in Germany

by James W. Gerard

The year, 1916, opened with this great question still unsettled and, in effect, Germany gave notice that after March first, 1916, the German submarines would sink all armed merchantmen of the enemies of Germany without warning. It is not my place here to go into the agitation of this question in America or into the history of the votes in Congress, which in fact upheld the policy of the President. A proposal as to armed merchantmen was issued by our State Department and the position taken in this was apparently abandoned at the time of the settlement of the Sussex case to which I now refer.

In the latter half of March, 1916, a number of boats having Americans on board were torpedoed without warning. These boats were the Eaglejoint, the Englishman, the Manchester Engineer and the Sussex. One American was killed or drowned on the Englishman, but the issue finally came to a head over the torpedoing of the channel passenger boat, Sussex which carried passengers between Folkstone and Dieppe, France.

On March twenty-fourth the Sussex was torpedoed near the coast of France. Four hundred and thirty-six persons, of whom seventy-five were Americans, were on board. The captain and a number of the passengers saw the torpedo and an endeavour was made to avoid it. After the boat was struck the many passengers took to the boats. Three Americans were injured and over forty persons lost their lives, although the boat was not sunk but was towed to Boulogne.

I was instructed to inquire from the German Government as to whether a German submarine had sunk the Sussex. The Foreign Office finally, at my repeated request, called on the Admiralty for a report of the torpedoing of the Sussex; and finally on the tenth of April the German Note was delivered to me. In the meantime, and before the delivery of this Note I had been assured again and again that the Sussex had not been torpedoed by a German submarine. In this Note a rough sketch was enclosed, said to have been made by the officer commanding the submarine, of a vessel which he admitted he had torpedoed, in the same locality where the Sussex had been attacked and at about the same time of day. It was said that this boat which was torpedoed was a mine layer of the recently built Arabic class and that a great explosion which was observed to occur in the torpedoed ship warranted the certain conclusion that great amounts of munitions were on board. The Note concluded: "The German Government must therefore assume that injury to the Sussex was attributable to another cause than attack by a German submarine." The Note contained an offer to submit any difference of opinion that might develop to be investigated by a mixed commission in accordance with the Hague Convention of 1907. The Englishman and the Eaglepoint, it was claimed, were attacked by German submarines only after they had attempted to escape, and an explanation was given as to the Manchester Engineer. With reference to the Sussex, the note continued: "Should the American Government have at its disposal other material at the conclusion of the case of the Sussex, the German Government would ask that it be communicated, in order to subject this material also to investigation."

In the meantime, American naval officers, etc., had been engaged in collecting facts as to the sinking of the Sussex, and this evidence, which seemed overwhelming and, in connection with the admissions in the German note, absolutely conclusive, was incorporated in the note sent to Germany in which Germany was notified: "Unless the Imperial Government should now immediately declare and effect abandonment of this present method of submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels, the Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether."

The issue was now clearly defined.

I have already spoken of the fact that for a long time there had been growing up two parties in Germany. One party headed by von Tirpitz in favour of what the Germans called rücksichtloser, or ruthless submarine war, in which all enemy merchant ships were to be sunk without warning, and the party then headed by the Chancellor which desired to avoid a conflict with America on this issue.

As I have explained in a former chapter, the military have always claimed to take a hand in shaping the destinies and foreign policies of Germany. When the Germans began to turn their attention to the creation of a fleet, von Tirpitz was the man who, in a sense, became the leader of the movement and, therefore, the creator of the modern navy of Germany. A skilful politician, he for years dominated the Reichstag and on the question of submarine warfare was most efficiently seconded by the efforts of the Navy League, an organization having perhaps one million members throughout Germany. Although only one of the three heads of the navy (he was Secretary of the Navy), by the force of his personality, by the political position which he had created for himself, and by the backing of his friends in the Navy League he really dominated the other two departments of the navy, the Marine Staff and the Marine Cabinet.

Like most Germans of the ruling class, ambition is his only passion. These Spartans do not care either for money or for the luxury which it brings. Their life is on very simple lines, both in the Army and Navy, in order that the officers shall not vie with one another in expenditure, and in order that the poorer officers and their wives shall not be subject to the humiliation which would be caused if they had to live in constant contact with brother officers living on a more luxurious footing.

Von Tirpitz' ambition undoubtedly led him to consider himself as a promising candidate for Bethmann-Hollweg's shoes. The whole submarine issue, therefore, became not only a question of military expediency and a question for the Foreign Office to decide in connection with the relations of America to Germany, but also a question of internal politics, a means of forcing the Chancellor out of office. The advocates for the ruthless war were drawn from the Navy and from the Army, and those who believed in the use of any means of offence against their enemies and particularly in the use of any means that would stop the shipment of munitions of war to the Allies. The Army and the Navy were joined by the Conservatives and by all those who hoped for the fall of the Chancellor. The conservative newspapers, and even the Roman Catholic newspapers were violent in their call for ruthless submarine war as well as violent in their denunciations of the United States of America.