Germany, The Next Republic? Part 1

Germany, The Next Republic?

by Carl W. Ackerman.

PREFACE

I was at the White House on the 29th of June, 1914, when the newspapers reported the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Archduke and Archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria.

In August, when the first declarations of war were received, I was a.s.signed by the United Press a.s.sociations to "cover" the belligerent emba.s.sies and I met daily the British, French, Belgian, Italian, German, Austro-Hungarian, Turkish and j.a.panese diplomats. When President Wilson went to New York, to Rome, Georgia, to Philadephia and other cities after the outbreak of the war, I accompanied him as one of the Was.h.i.+ngton correspondents. On these journeys and in Was.h.i.+ngton I had an opportunity to observe the President, to study his methods and ideas, and to hear the comment of the European amba.s.sadors.

When the von Tirpitz blockade of England was announced in February, 1915, I was asked to go to London where I remained only one month.

From March, 1915, until the break in diplomatic relations I was the war correspondent for the United Press within the Central Powers. In Berlin, Vienna and Budapest, I met the highest government officials, leading business men and financiers. I knew Secretaries of State Von Jagow and Zimmermann; General von Kluck, who drove the German first army against Paris in August, 1914; General von Falkenhayn, former Chief of the General Staff; Philip Scheidemann, leader of the Reichstag Socialists; Count Stefan Tisza, Minister President of Hungary and Count Albert Apponyi.

While my headquarters were in Berlin, I made frequent journeys to the front in Belgium, France, Poland, Russia and Roumania. Ten times I was on the battlefields during important military engagements. Verdun, the Somme battlefield, General Brusiloff's offensive against Austria and the invasion of Roumania, I saw almost as well as a soldier.

After the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and the beginning of critical relations with the United States I was in constant touch with James W.

Gerard, the American Amba.s.sador, and the Foreign Office. I followed closely the effects of American political intervention until February 10th, 1917. Frequent visits to Holland and Denmark gave me the impressions of those countries regarding President Wilson and the United States. En route to Was.h.i.+ngton with Amba.s.sador Gerard, I met in Berne, Paris and Madrid, officials and people who interpreted the affairs in these countries.

So, from the beginning of the war until today, I have been at the strategic points as our relations with Germany developed and came to a climax. At the beginning of the war I was sympathetic with Germany, but my sympathy changed to disgust as I watched developments in Berlin change the German people from world citizens to narrow-minded, deceitful tools of a ruthless government. I saw Germany outlaw herself. I saw the effects of President Wilson's notes. I saw the anti-American propaganda begin. I saw the Germany of 1915 disappear.

I saw the birth of lawless Germany.

In this book I shall try to take the reader from Was.h.i.+ngton to Berlin and back again, to show the beginning and the end of our diplomatic relations with the German government. I believe that the United States by two years of patience and note-writing, has done more to accomplish the destruction of militarism and to encourage freedom of thought in Germany than the Allies did during nearly three years of fighting. The United States helped the German people think for themselves, but being children in international affairs, the people soon accepted the inspired thinking of the government. Instead of forcing their opinions upon the rulers until results were evident, they chose to follow with blind faith their military G.o.ds.

The United States is now at war with Germany because the Imperial Government willed it. The United States is at war to aid the movement for democracy in Germany; to help the German people realize that they must think for themselves. The seeds of democratic thought which Wilson's notes sowed in Germany are growing. If the Imperial Government had not frightened the people into a belief that too much thinking would be dangerous for the Fatherland, the United States would not today be at war with the Kaiser's government. Only one thing now will make the people realize that they must think for themselves if they wish to exist as a nation and as a race. That is a military defeat, a defeat on the battlefields of the Kaiser, von Hindenburg and the Rhine Valley ammunition interests. Only a decisive defeat will shake the public confidence in the nation's leaders. Only a destroyed German army leaders.h.i.+p will make the people overthrow the group of men who do Germany's political thinking to-day.

C. W. A.

New York, May, 1917.

"Abraham Lincoln said that this Republic could not exist half slave and half free. Now, with similar clarity, we perceive that the world cannot exist half German and half free. We have to put an end to the b.l.o.o.d.y doctrine of the superior race--to that anarchy which is expressed in the conviction that German necessity is above all law. We have to put an end to the German idea of ruthlessness. We have to put an end to the doctrine that it is right to make every use of power that is possible, without regard to any restriction of justice, of honour, of humanity."

_New York Tribune, April 7, 1917._

GERMANY, THE NEXT REPUBLIC?

CHAPTER I

MOBILIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION

I

The Haupttelegraphenamt (the Chief Telegraph Office) in Berlin is the centre of the entire telegraph system of Germany. It is a large, brick building in the Franzoesischestra.s.se guarded, day and night, by soldiers. The sidewalks outside the building are barricaded. Without a pa.s.s no one can enter. Foreign correspondents in Berlin, when they had telegrams to send to their newspapers, frequently took them from the Foreign Office to the Chief Telegraph Office personally in order to speed them on their way to the outside world. The censored despatches were sealed in a Foreign Office envelope. With this credential correspondents were permitted to enter the building and the room where all telegrams are pa.s.sed by the military authorities.

During my two years' stay in Berlin I went to the telegraph office several times every week. Often I had to wait while the military censor read my despatches. On a large bulletin board in this room, I saw, and often read, doc.u.ments posted for the information of the telegraph officials. During one of my first waiting periods I read an original doc.u.ment relating to the events at the beginning of the war.

This was a typewritten letter signed by the Director of the Post and Telegraph. Because I was always watched by a soldier escort, I could never copy it. But after reading it scores of times I soon memorised everything, including the periods.

This doc.u.ment was as follows:

Office of the Imperial Post & Telegraph August 2nd, 1914.

Announcement No. 3.

To the Chief Telegraph Office:

From to-day on, the Post and Telegraph communications between Germany on the one hand and:

1. England, 2. France, 3. Russia, 4. j.a.pan, 5. Belgium, 6. Italy, 7. Montenegro, 8. Servia, 9. Portugal;

on the other hand are interrupted because Germany finds herself in a state of war.

(Signed) Director of the Post and Telegraph.

This notice, which was never published, shows that the man who directed the Post and Telegraph Service of the Imperial Government knew on the 2nd of August, 1914, who Germany's enemies would be. Of the eleven enemies of Germany to-day only Roumania and the United States were not included. If the Director of the Post and Telegraph knew what to expect, it is certain that the Imperial Government knew. This announcement shows that Germany expected war with nine different nations, but at the time it was posted on the bulletin board of the Haupttelegraphenamt, neither Italy, j.a.pan, Belgium nor Portugal had declared war. Italy did not declare war until nearly a year and a half afterwards, Portugal nearly two years afterward and j.a.pan not until December, 1914.

This doc.u.ment throws an interesting light upon the preparations Germany made for a world war.

The White, Yellow, Grey and Blue Books, which all of the belligerents published after the beginning of the war, dealt only with the attempts of these nations to prevent the war. None of the nations has as yet published white books to show how it prepared for war, and still, every nation in Europe had been expecting and preparing for a European conflagration. Winston Churchill, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, stated at the beginning of the war that England's fleet was mobilised. France had contributed millions of francs to fortify the Russian border in Poland, although Germany had made most of the guns.

Belgium had what the Kaiser called, "a contemptible little army" but the soldiers knew how to fight when the invaders came. Germany had new 42 cm. guns and a network of railroads which operated like shuttles between the Russian and French and Belgian frontiers. Ever since 1870 Europe had been talking war. Children were brought up and educated into the belief that some day war would come. Most people considered it inevitable, although not every one wanted it.

During the exciting days of August, 1914, I was calling at the belligerent emba.s.sies and legations in Was.h.i.+ngton. Neither M.

Jusserand, the French Amba.s.sador, nor Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, the British Amba.s.sador, nor Count von Bernstorff, the Kaiser's representative, were in Was.h.i.+ngton then. But it was not many weeks until all three had hastened to this country from Europe. Almost the first act of the belligerents was to send their envoys to Was.h.i.+ngton.

As I met these men I was in a sense an agent of public opinion who called each day to report the opinions of the belligerents to the readers of American newspapers. One day at the British Emba.s.sy I was given copies of the White Book and of many other doc.u.ments which Great Britain had issued to show how she tried to avoid the war. In conversations later with Amba.s.sador von Bernstorff, I was given the German viewpoint.

The thing which impressed me at the time was the desire of these officials to get their opinions before the American people. But why did these amba.s.sadors want the standpoints of their governments understood over here? Why was the United States singled out of all other neutrals? If all the belligerents really wanted to avoid war, why did they not begin twenty years before, to prevent it, instead of, to prepare for it?

All the powers issued their official doc.u.ments for one primary purpose--to win public opinion. First, it was necessary for each country to convince its own people that their country was being attacked and that their leaders had done everything possible to avoid war. Even in Europe people would not fight without a reason. The German Government told the people that unless the army was mobilised immediately Russia would invade and seize East Prussia. England, France and Belgium explained to their people that Germany was out to conquer the world by way of Belgium and France. But White Books were not circulated alone in Europe; they were sent by the hundreds of thousands into the United States and translated into every known language so that the people of the whole world could read them.

Then the word battles between the Allies and the Central Powers began in the United States. While the soldiers fought on the battlefields of Belgium, France, East Prussia and Poland, an equally bitter struggle was carried on in the United States. In Europe the object was to stop the invaders. In America the goal was public opinion.

It was not until several months after the beginning of the war that Sir Edward Grey and Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg began to discuss what the two countries had done before the war, to avoid it. The only thing either nation could refer to was the 1912 Conference between Lord Haldane and the Chancellor. This was the only real attempt made by the two leading belligerents to come to an understanding to avoid inevitable bloodshed. Discussions of these conferences were soon hushed up in Europe because of the bitterness of the people against each other. The Hymn of Hate had stirred the German people and the Zeppelin raids were beginning to sow the seeds of determination in the hearts of the British. It was too late to talk about why the war was not prevented. So each set of belligerents had to rely upon the official doc.u.ments at the beginning of the war to show what was done to avoid it.

These White Books were written to win public opinion. But why were the people _suddenly_ taken into the confidence of their governments? Why had the governments of England, France, Germany and Russia not been so frank before 1914? Why had they all been interested in making the people speculate as to what would come, and how it would come about?

Why were all the nations encouraging suspicion? Why did they always question the motives, as well as the acts, of each other? Is it possible that the world progressed faster than the governments and that the governments suddenly realised that public opinion was the biggest factor in the world? Each one knew that a war could not be waged without public support and each one knew that the sympathy of the outside world depended more upon public opinion than upon business or military relations.

II

How America Was Shocked by the War