THE OLD MENACE

A welcome period of quiet in the submarine controversy with Germany followed the settlement of the Sussex case recorded in the previous volume. But neither the Administration nor the country was deluded into resting in any false security. The dragon was not throttled; it merely slumbered by the application of a diplomatic opiate. While the war lasted the menace of its awaking and jeopardizing German peace with the United States was always present.

The achievements of the Deutschland, a peaceful commercial submarine which inaugurated an undersea traffic between the United States and Germany, provided an interesting diversion from the tension created by the depredations of her armed sisters. After safely crossing the Atlantic and finding a safe berth in an American port in the summer of 1916, she showed such hesitation in setting out on the return trip that doubts were general as to whether the dangers of capture by alert Allied cruisers were not too great to be risked. The attempt nevertheless was finally made on August 2, 1916, when she darted under water after passing out of the three-mile limit at the Virginia Capes and was successful. She arrived at Bremen on August 23, 1916, with a cargo of rubber and metal, and apparently found no difficulty in eluding the foes supposedly in wait for her on the high seas. When she left her Baltimore berth, so the story went, eight British warships awaited her, attended by numerous fishing craft hired to spread nets to entangle her. Near the English coast dense fogs aided by obscuring the vision of her foes' naval lookouts, and in rounding Scotland to reach the North Sea she had to evade a long line of warships and innumerable auxiliary craft extended far north.

Germany found occasion for exultation in her return without mishap. The blockade was broken. Berlin was bedecked with flags and the whole country celebrated the event as though Marshal von Hindenburg had won another victory. The Deutschland again left Bremen on October 10, 1916, and found her way into New London, Conn., on November 1, 1916, leaving for Germany three weeks later with a rubber and metal cargo said to be worth $2,000,000 and a number of mail pouches. She was reported to have arrived safely off the mouth of the Weser on December 10, 1916.

A repetition of the Deutschland's exploits was looked for from her sister undersea craft, the Bremen, about whose movements the widest speculation was centered. She was reported to have left Germany for the United States on September 1, 1916, but did not appear, nor was any trace of her seen en route. She never arrived, and became a mystery of the sea. A story circulated that she had been captured by a British patrol boat in the Straits of Dover and thirty-three of her crew of thirty-five made prisoners, the remaining two having been killed when the boat was caught in a steel net. The British admiralty preserved its customary silence as to the truth of this report. Her German owners finally acknowledged their belief that she had been lost probably through an accident to her machinery. At any rate a life preserver bearing the name Bremen was picked up off the Maine coast about the end of September, 1916.

As the summer of 1916 advanced American contemplation of this agreeable trade relation with blockaded Germany by means of a commercial submarine service was abruptly switched to a review of the manner in which that country was observing its undertaking not to sink unresisting vessels without warning. A certain communication credited to Admiral von Tirpitz was circulated in Germany urging a return to his discarded sea policy. This was nothing more nor less than the pursuit of unrestricted and ruthless submarine warfare, the espousal of which by him as Minister of Marine, in conflict with the milder methods favored by the German Chancellor, forced his resignation earlier in the year. Of course such a change would mean an immediate clash with the United States and the ending of diplomatic relations.

President Wilson had been watching Germany's behavior since May, 1916, when she pledged her submarine commanders to safeguard the lives on board doomed vessels. Three months' probation, according to American reports, failed to show any evidence that she was not living up to her promise; but British reports cited a number of instances pointing to an absolute disregard of her undertaking with the United States. She had hedged this promise with a condition reserving her liberty of action should a "new situation" develop necessitating a change in her sea policy, and the question arose whether she was not trying to create a new situation to justify such a change. Concurrent with the new Von Tirpitz propaganda, at any rate, came a recrudescence of submarine destruction without warning, mainly in the Mediterranean. This activity lent weight to a fear that the kaiser and Von Bethmann-Hollweg were yielding to the pressure exercised by the Von Tirpitz party. Germany regarded her submarines as her chief weapons for damaging the Allies; but she was embarrassed by the problem of how to operate them without clashing with American interests. Her policy at length shaped itself to a careful discrimination in raiding Atlantic traffic and avoiding attacks on liners altogether.

The leader of the German National Liberals, Dr. Ernest Bassermann, echoed the Von Tirpitz cry, in an address to his constituents at SaarbrÜcken. The most ruthless employment of all weapons, he urged, was imperative. Besides Von Tirpitz, High Admiral Koester, Count Zeppelin, and Prince von BÜlow shared this view. He told the world, which he was really addressing, that the submarine campaign had not been abandoned, but only suspended solely on account of the American protest. It was not clear that there had really been any cessation of submarine activity, though some abatement had undoubtedly followed the undertaking with the United States.

The manifest unrest in Germany provoked by the curb placed upon her submarines by President Wilson caused the eyes of Washington to be fixed anxiously on the uncertain situation. It was solely a psychological and mental condition, but of a character that seemed premonitory of an outbreak on Germany's part. Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, in a cryptic remark to the Reichstag on September 28, 1916, succeeded in aggravating American concern, though he may not have so intended. "A German statesman," he said, "who would hesitate to use against Britain every available instrument of battle that would really shorten this war should be hanged."

There was no obvious reference to the United States in this utterance; but the German press seized upon it as a pretext for an attack on American neutrality. The connection was provided by the coincidental death of an American aviator named Rockwell, who, with a number of compatriots, had served the Allies on the French front. The point made was that the active part American airmen were taking in the ranks of the Allies, combined with the enormous supply of war materials furnished by American firms, indicated the futility of abiding by concessions made to the United States controlling the submarine war. The United States was charged with taking advantage of restricted submarine activity to cover the participation of American citizens as aids to the Entente and to expand its war trade. Being simultaneous and couched in the same key, the press outbursts bore every indication of a common inspiration, probably official.

"Moderation in the use of Germany's undersea craft," said one group of journals in effect, "merely serves to further American assistance to the Entente Allies in men and munitions."

Another paper, the "Tageszeitung," characterized the American policy as one in the pursuance of which President Wilson Was making a threatened use of a "wooden sword," and called for a policy of the utmost firmness against that country.

It was intimated from Washington that if any faction in Germany—in this case the Pan-Germans—succeeded in reviving submarine methods whereby ships were sunk without warning or without safeguards against loss of American lives, the submarine crisis with Germany would be reopened with all its possibilities. At the same time no serious importance was attached by official Washington to the German clamor for more frightfulness.

It was true that the Pan-Germans were making a powerful onslaught for the overthrow of the German Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, who was the only obstacle to a return to ruthless submarine warfare. Moreover, as perceived by the "Berliner Tageblatt," "tension in the atmosphere of imperial politics has reached such a high point that a discharge must follow if the empire is not to suffer lasting damage." But Washington looked for development on the high seas, not in the political arena of Berlin, where the sound and fury of words did not afford a safe barometer of governmental action.

By the end of September, 1916, a "lull" in German submarine activity was reported, due, according to Lord Robert Cecil, to a shortage in submarines. But reports showed that between June 1, 1916, and September 24, 1916, 277 vessels, sixty-six of which were neutral, had been sunk by submarines, fifteen of them without warning, and with the loss of eighty-four lives. The abatement really took place in June and July, 1916, following the American agreement with Germany in May, 1916. The "lull" may therefore be measured by these figures: Vessels sunk in June, 57; in July, 42; in August, 103; in September (to the 24th), 75.

The only real lull was a cessation in attacks on liners. The British view, based on the allegation that fifteen vessels had been sunk without warning causing a loss of eighty-four lives, was that German frightfulness was already in full swing despite Berlin's promise to the United States. The American attitude, however, was that so long as American lives were not lost on ships sunk without warning the United States had no ground for intervention. Hence Germany could apparently sink vessels with impunity so long as the noncombatant victims belonged to other nationalities. The agitation in Germany to break the undertaking with the United States was thrashed out between the adherents of Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg and the Pan-Germanists without shaking the Chancellor's strength. He had the support of Field Marshal von Hindenburg and the navy chiefs, who, in frowning on an unbridled submarine warfare, successfully imposed the weight of their authority against any change. The subject divided the Budget Committee of the Reichstag, the question being whether its discussion should be permitted in open session. The outcome was that the committee decided, by a vote of 24 to 4, to smother the agitation by refusing to permit its ventilation in the open Reichstag.[Back to Contents]