My Four Years in Germany

by James W. Gerard

I cannot find words to express my admiration for this man whose great talents for organisation were placed at the service of humanity. Every one knows of what he accomplished in feeding the inhabitants of Belgium and Northern France. Mr. Hoover asked me to become one of the chairmen of the International Commission for the Relief of Belgium and I was happy to have the opportunity in Berlin to second his efforts. There was considerable business in connection with the work of the commission. I had many interviews with those in authority with reference to getting their ships through, etc. Mr. Hoover and I called on the Chancellor and endeavoured to get him to remit the fine of forty million francs a month which the Germans had imposed upon Belgium. This, however, the Chancellor refused to do. Later on in April, 1915, I was able as an eye-witness to see how efficiently Mr. Hoover's organisation fed, in addition to the people of Belgium, the French population in that part of Northern France in the occupation of the Germans.

Mr. Hoover surrounded himself with an able staff, Mr. Vernon Kellogg and others, and in America men like Mr. A. J. Hemphill were his devoted supporters.

Early in 1915, Mr. Ernest P. Bicknell, who had first come to Germany representing the American Red Cross, returned representing not only that organisation but also the Rockefeller Foundation. With him was Mr. Wickliffe Rose, also of the Rockefeller Foundation; and with these two gentlemen I took up the question of the relief of Poland. Mr. Rose and Mr. Bicknell together visited Poland and saw with their own eyes the necessity for relief. A meeting was held in the Reichstag attended by Prince Hatzfeld of the German Red Cross, Director Guttmann, of the Dresdener Bank, Geheimrat Lewald, of the Imperial Ministry of the Interior, representing the German Government, and many others connected with the government, military and financial interests of Germany.

The Commission for the Relief in Poland, of which I was to be chairman, was organised and included the Spanish Ambassador, His Excellency the Bishop of Posen, the Prince Bishop of Cracow, Jacob H. Schiff of New York, and others. Messrs. Warwick, Greene and Wadsworth were to take up the actual executive work.

In conjunction with Messrs. Rose and Bicknell, I drew up a sort of treaty, having particularly in mind certain difficulties encountered by the American Relief Commission in Belgium. The main point in this treaty was that the German Government agreed not to requisition either food or money within the limits of the territory to be relieved, which territory comprised that part of Poland within German occupation up to within, as I recall it, fifty kilometres of the firing line. The one exception was that a fine might be levied on a community where all the inhabitants had made themselves jointly and severally liable according to the provisions of the Hague Convention. The Rockefeller Foundation on its part agreed to pay all the expenses of the executive work of the commission. This treaty, after being submitted to General Hindenburg and approved by him, was signed by Dr. Lewald, representing the German Government, by Mr. Bicknell, representing the Rockefeller Foundation, and by me, representing the new commission for the relief of Poland.

Work was immediately commenced under this arrangement and, so far as possible, food was purchased in Holland and Denmark, but there was little to be had in these countries. The Allies, however, refused to allow food to enter Germany for the purpose of this commission, and so the matter fell through. Later, when the Allies were willing to permit the food to enter, it was the German Government that refused to reaffirm this treaty and refused to agree that the German army of occupation should not requisition food in occupied Poland. Of course, under these circumstances, no one could expect the Allies to consent to the entry of food; because the obvious result would be that the Germans would immediately, following the precedent established by them in Northern France, take all the food produced in the country for their army and the civil population of Germany, and allow the Poles to be fed with food sent in from outside, while perhaps their labour was utilised in the very fields the products of which were destined for German consumption.

There is no question that the sufferings of the people of Poland have been very great, and when the history of Poland during the war comes to be written the world will stand aghast at the story of her sufferings. It is a great pity that these various schemes for relief did not succeed. The Rockefeller Commission, however, up to the time I left Germany did continue to carryon some measure of relief and succeeded in getting in condensed milk, to some extent, for the children of that unfortunate country. These negotiations brought me in contact with a number of Poles resident in Berlin, whom I found most eager to do what they could to relieve the situation. I wish here to express my admiration for the work of the Rockefeller Commission in Europe. Not only were the ideas of the Commission excellent and businesslike but the men selected to carry them into effect were without exception men of high character and possessed of rare executive ability.

As I have said in a previous chapter, I was ridiculed in the American newspapers because I had suggested, in answer to a cable of the League of Mercy, that some work should be done for the prisoners of war. I do not know whether the great work undertaken by Dr. John R. Mott and his associates was suggested by my answer or not; that does not matter. But this work undertaken by the American Y. M. C. A. certainly mattered a great deal to the prisoners of war in Europe. Dr. Mott after serving on the Mexican Commission, has gone to Russia as a member of the Commission to that country.

The Y. M. C. A. organisation headed by Dr. Mott, who was most ably assisted by the Reverend Archibald C. Harte, took up this work, which was financed, I have been told, by the McCormick family of Chicago, Cleveland H. Dodge, John D. Rockefeller and others. Mr. Harte obtained permission from the German authorities for the erection of meeting halls and for work in German camps. When he had obtained this authorisation from Germany he went to Russia, where he was able to get a similar authorisation.

At first in Russia, I have heard, the prisoners of war were allowed great liberty and lived unguarded in Siberian villages where they obtained milk, bread, butter, eggs and honey at very reasonable rates. As the war went on they were more and more confined to barracks and there their situation was sad indeed. In the winter season, it is dark at three in the afternoon and remains dark until ten the following morning. Of course, I did not see the Russian prison camps. The work carried on there was similar to that carried on in the German camps by Mr. Harte and his band of devoted assistants.