My Four Years in Germany

by James W. Gerard

After we had been a day or so at Charleville, the Vice-Chancellor, Helfferich, arrived. I have always believed that he was sent for to add his weight to the arguments in favour of peace and to point out that it was necessary for Germany to hate the friendship of America after the war, so as to have markets where she could place her goods. And I am convinced that at this time, at any rate, the influence of Helfferich was cast in the scale in favour of peace.

Finally, I was told that on the next day, which was Monday, May first, I was to lunch with the Emperor. Grew was invited to accompany me, and the Chancellor said that he would call for me about an hour before the time set for lunch as the Emperor desired to have a talk with me before lunch. In the afternoon an extract from the log of a German submarine commander was sent to me in which the submarine commander had stated that he had sighted a vessel which he could easily have torpedoed, but as the vessel was one hundred and twenty miles from land, he had not done so because the crew might not be able from that distance to reach a harbour. When the Chancellor called for me the following morning, he asked me if I had read this extract from the submarine officer's log, and noted how he had refrained from torpedoing a boat one hundred and twenty miles from land. I told the Chancellor that I had read the extract, but that I had also read in the newspaper that very morning that a ship had been torpedoed in stormy weather at exactly the same distance from land and the crew compelled to seek safety in the ship's boats; that, anyway, "one swallow did not make a summer," and that reports were continually being received of boats being torpedoed at great distances from land.

We then got in the motor and motored to the château about a mile off, where the Kaiser resided. We got out of the motor before going into the courtyard of the château, and immediately I was taken by the Chancellor into a garden on the gently sloping hillside below the château. Here the Emperor, dressed in uniform, was walking.

As I drew near the Emperor, he said immediately, "Do you come like the great pro-consul bearing peace or war in either hand?" By this he referred, of course, to the episode in which Quintus Fabius Maximus, chief of the Roman envoys sent to Hannibal in the Second Punic War, doubled his toga in his hand, held it up and said: "In this fold I carry peace and war: choose which you will have." "Give us which you prefer," was the reply. "Then take war," answered the Roman, letting the toga fall. "We accept the gift," cried the Carthaginian Senator, "and welcome."

I said, "No, your Majesty, only hoping that the differences between two friendly nations may be adjusted." The Emperor then spoke of what he termed the uncourteous tone of our notes, saying that we charged the Germans with barbarism in warfare and that, as Emperor and head of the Church, he had wished to carry on the war in a knightly manner. He referred to his own speech to the members of the Reichstag at the commencement of the war and said that the nations opposed to Germany had used unfair methods and means, that the French especially were not like the French of '70, but that their officers, instead of being nobles, came from no one knew where. He then referred to the efforts to starve out Germany and keep out milk and said that before he would allow his family and grand-children to starve he would blow up Windsor Castle and the whole Royal family of England. We then had a long discussion in detail of the whole submarine question, in the course of which the Emperor said that the submarine had come to stay, that it was a weapon recognised by all countries, and that he had seen a picture of a proposed giant submarine in an American paper, the Scientific American. He stated that, anyway, there was no longer any international law. To this last statement the Chancellor agreed. He further said that a person on an enemy merchant ship was like a man travelling on a cart behind the battle lines--he had no just cause of complaint if injured. He asked me why we had done nothing to England because of her alleged violations of international law,--why we had not broken the British blockade.

In addition to the technical arguments based on international law, I answered that no note of the United States had made any general charge of barbarism against Germany; that we complained of the manner of the use of submarines and nothing more; that we could never promise to do anything to England or to any other country in return for a promise from Germany or any third country to keep the rules of international law and respect the rights and lives of our citizens; that we were only demanding our rights under the recognised rules of international law and it was for us to decide which rights we would enforce first; that, as I had already told the Chancellor, if two men entered my grounds and one stepped on my flower beds and the other killed my sister, I should probably first pursue the murderer of my sister; that those travelling on the seas in enemy merchant ships were in a different position from those travelling in a cart behind the enemy's battle lines on land because the land travellers were on enemy's territory, while those on the sea were on territory which, beyond the three-mile limit, was free and in no sense enemy's territory. We also discussed the position taken by the German Government in one of the Frye Notes, in which the German expert had taken the position that a cargo of food destined for an armed enemy port was presumed to be for the armies of the enemy, and therefore contraband. The Emperor spoke of the case of the Dacia with some bitterness, but when I went into an explanation the Chancellor joined in the conversation and said that our position was undoubtedly correct. I said that it was not our business to break the blockade--that there were plenty of German agents in the United States who could send food ships and test the question; that one ship I knew of, the Wilhelmina, laden with food, had been seized by the British, who then compromised with the owners, paying them, I believed, a large sum for the disputed cargo. And in taking up the doctrine of ultimate destination of goods, i.e., goods sent to a neutral country but really destined for a belligerent, I said I thought that during our Civil War we had taken against England exactly the same stand which England now took; and I said I thought that one of the decisions of our Supreme Court was based on a shipment to Matamoras, Mexico, but which the Supreme Court had decided was really for the Confederacy.

Discussing the submarine question, the Emperor and Chancellor spoke of the warning given in the Lusitania case; and I said: "If the Chancellor warns me not to go out on the Wilhelmplatz, where I have a perfect right to go, the fact that he gave the warning does not justify him in killing me if I disregarded his warning and go where I have a right to go." The conversation then became more general and we finally left the garden and went into the château, where the Emperor's aides and guests were impatiently waiting for lunch.

This conversation lasted far beyond lunch time. Anxious heads were seen appearing from the windows and terraces of the château to which we finally adjourned. I sat between the Emperor and Prince Pless. Conversation was general for the most of the time, and subjects such as the suffragettes and the peace expedition of Henry Ford were amusingly discussed.

After lunch, I again had a long talk with the Emperor but of a more general nature than the conversation in the garden.

That night about eleven o'clock, after again dining with the Chancellor, we left Charleville in the same special salon car, arriving at Berlin about four P. M. the next day, where at the station were a crowd of German and American newspaper correspondents, all anxious to know what had happened.