On page seventy-four he says further, "Throughout Germany the objection for the resumption of ruthless U-boat warfare of the Lusitania type grows stronger day by day. The Chancellor is holding out against it, but how long he can restrain it no one can say. I left Germany convinced that only peace could prevent its resumption. And the same opinion is held by every German with whom I spoke, and it is held also by Ambassador Gerard. The possibility was so menacing that the principal cause of the Ambassador's return in October was that he might report to Washington. The point was set out in press despatches at that time."
I wrote a preface to Mr. Swope's book for the express purpose of informing the American public in this way that I believed that Germany intended at an early date to resume the ruthless V-boat warfare.
Our trip home on the Frederick VIII was without incident except for the fact that on the ninth day of October, Swope came to the door of my stateroom about twelve o'clock at night and informed me that the captain had told him to tell me that the wireless had brought the news that German submarines were operating directly ahead of us and had just sunk six ships in the neighbourhood of Nantucket. I imagine that the captain slightly changed the course of our ship, but next day the odour of burning oil was quite noticeable for hours.
These Danish ships in making the trip from Copenhagen to New York were compelled to put in at the port of Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland, where the ship was searched by the British authorities. On the occasion of our visit to Kirkwall, on this trip, a Swede, who had been so foolish as to make a sketch of the harbour and defences of Kirkwall from the top deck of the Frederick VIII, was taken off the boat by the British. The British had very cleverly spotted him doing this from the shore or a neighbouring boat, through a telescope.
Ships can enter Kirkwall only by daylight and at six o'clock every evening trawlers draw a net across the entrance to the harbour as a protection against submarines. A passage through this net is not opened until daylight the following morning.
Captain Thomson of the Frederick VIII, the ship which carried us to America and back to Copenhagen, by his evident mastery of his profession gave to all of his passengers a feeling of confidence on the somewhat perilous voyage in those dangerous waters.
When I reached America, on October eleventh, I was given a most flattering reception and the freedom of the City of New York. Within a few days after my arrival, the President sent for me to visit him at Shadow Lawn, at Long Branch, and I was with him for over four hours and a quarter in our first conference. I saw him, of course, after the election, before returning to Germany, and in fact sailed on the fourth of December at his special request.
Before I left I was impressed with the idea that he desired above all things both to keep and to make peace. Of course, this question of making peace is a very delicate one. A direct offer on our part might have subjected us to the same treatment which we gave Great Britain during our Civil War when Great Britain made overtures looking towards the establishment of peace, and the North answered, practically telling the British Government that it could attend to its own business, that it would brook no interference and would regard further overtures as unfriendly acts.
The Germans started this war without any consultation with the United States, and then seemed to think that they had a right to demand that the United States make peace for them on such terms and at such time as they chose; and that the failure to do so gave them a vested right to break all the laws of warfare against their enemies and to murder the citizens of the United States on the high seas, in violation of the declared principles of international law.
Nevertheless, I think that the inclination of the President was to go very far towards the forcing of peace.