To this statement there is one outstanding answer. It is an excerpt from the German book of instructions for officers:
"Bribery of the enemy's subjects with the object of obtaining military advantages, acceptances of offers of treachery, reception of deserters, utilization of the discontented elements in the population, support of the pretenders and the like are permissible; indeed international law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery and the like) to the prejudice of the enemy. Considerations of chivalry, generosity and honor may denounce in such cases a hasty and unsparing exploitation of such advantages as indecent and dishonorable, but law, which is less touchy, allows it. The ugly and inherently immoral aspect of such methods cannot affect the recognition of their lawfulness. The necessary aim of war gives the belligerent the right and imposes upon him, according to circumstances, the duty not to let slip the important, it may be decisive, advantages to be gained by such means."
("The War Book of the German General Staff," translated by J. H. Morgan, M.A., pp. 113-114.)
CHAPTER III THE RAIDERS AT SEA
The outbreak of war—Mobilization of reservists—The Hamburg-American contract—The Berwind—The Marina Quezada—The Sacramento—Naval battles.
A fanatic student in the streets of Sarajevo, Bosnia, threw a bomb at a visiting dignitary, and the world went to war. That occurred on the sunny forenoon of June 28, 1914. The assassin was chased by the police, the newspaper men, and the photographers, who reached him almost simultaneously, and presently the world knew that the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, of Austria, was the victim, and that a plain frightened fellow, struggling in the shadow of a doorway, was his assailant.
Austria's resentment of the crime mounted during July and boiled over in the ultimatum of July 23. Five days later, with Germany's permission, Austria declared war on Servia. By this time continental tempers had been aroused, and the Central Empires knew that "Der Tag" had come. Austria, Russia, Germany, England, France and Belgium entered the lists within a fortnight.
By mid-July Germany had warned her agents in other lands of the imminence of war and a quiet mobilization had begun of the more important reservists in America. Captain von Papen, after dispatching his telegram from Mexico via El Paso to Captain Boy-Ed, hurried to Washington, arriving there on August 3. He began to weld together into a vast band the scientists, experts, secret agents and German army-reservists, who were under German military oaths, and were prepared to gather information or to execute a military enterprise "zu Befehl!" How rapidly he assembled his staff is shown in testimony given on the witness stand by "Horst von der Goltz," alias Bridgeman Taylor, alias Major Wachendorf, a German spy who had been a major in a Mexican army until July.
A German consul in El Paso had sounded out Goltz's willingness to return to German service. "A few days later, the 3rd of August, 1914, license was given by my commanding officer to separate myself from the service of my brigade for the term of six months. I left directly for El Paso, Texas, where I was told by Mr. Kueck, German Consul at Chihuahua, Mexico, who stayed there, to put myself at the disposition of Captain von Papen." This was two days before the final declaration of war.