Occasionally, as at Baltimore, on April 6, 1918, the public heard from him brief, ringing speeches of warlike resolution:
Germany has once more said that force and force alone shall decide whether Justice and Peace shall reign in the affairs of men, whether Right as America conceives it or Dominion as she conceives it shall determine the destinies of mankind. There is therefore but one response possible from us. Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish Dominion down in the dust.
Months after hostilities had ended, there appeared from time to time in the newspapers, without his or my knowledge of proposed publication, utterances of his to military men during the conflict which showed his warrior heart and his extraordinary ability to grasp a technical military problem such as his dispatch to Admiral Sims, his address to the officers of the Atlantic Fleet, and his interview with Marshal Joffre in the White House. Perhaps it is not generally known that Mr. Wilson, who has constantly read and loved the philosophic poetry of Wordsworth, has also been an intense admirer of Shakespeare's warrior-hero, Henry the Fifth, and has frequently read aloud to friends, with exclamations of admiration, the stirring speeches of Henry in the Shakespearean play.
The cable message to Admiral Sims is as follows:
FROM THE PRESIDENT FOR ADMIRAL SIMS,
American Embassy, London, July 5, 1917.
Strictly confidential.
From the beginning of the war, I have been greatly surprised at the failure of the British Admiralty to use Great Britain's great naval superiority in an effective way. In the presence of the present submarine emergency they are helpless to the point of panic. Every plan we suggest they reject for some reason of prudence. In my view, this is not a time for prudence but for boldness even at the cost of great losses. In most of your dispatches you have quite properly advised us of the sort of aid and cooperation desired from us by the Admiralty. The trouble is that their plans and methods do not seem to us efficacious. I would be very much obliged to you if you would report to me, confidentially, of course, exactly what the Admiralty has been doing, and what they have accomplished, and add to the report your own comments and suggestions, based upon independent thought of the whole situation, without regard to the judgments of any one on that side of the water. The Admiralty was very slow to adopt the protection or convoy and it is not now, I judge [protecting] convoys on adequate scale within the danger zone, seeming to keep small craft with the grand fleet. The absence of craft for convoy is even more apparent on the French coast than on the English coast and in the Channel. I do not see how the necessary military supplies and supplies of food and fuel oil are to be delivered at British ports in any other way within the next few months than under adequate convoy. There will presently not be ships or tankers enough and our shipbuilding plans may not begin to yield important results in less than eighteen months. I believe that you will keep these instructions absolutely and entirely to yourself, and that you will give me such advice as you would give if you were handling and if you were running a navy of your own.
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.
For sheer audacity, there is not much that can be compared with his address to the officers of the Atlantic Fleet on August 11, 1917:
Now, the point that is constantly in my mind, gentlemen, is this: This is an unprecedented war and, therefore, it is a war in one sense for amateurs. Nobody ever before conducted a war like this and therefore nobody can pretend to be a professional in a war like this. Here are two great navies, not to speak of the others associated with us, our own and the British, outnumbering by a very great margin the navy to which we are opposed and yet casting about for a war in which to use our superiority and our strength, because of the novelty of the instruments used, because of the unprecedented character of the war, because, as I said just now, nobody ever before fought a war like this, in the way that this is being fought at sea, or on land either, for that matter. The experienced soldier—experienced in previous wars—is a back number so far as his experience is concerned; not so far as his intelligence is concerned. His experience does not count, because he never fought a war as this is being fought, and therefore he is an amateur along with the rest of us. Now, somebody has got to think this war out. Somebody has got to think out the way not only to fight the submarine, but to do something different from what we are doing.