BERLIN'S TACTICS

Before the armed neutrality stage of the prewar period was reached certain events transpired in Berlin which call for inclusion in the record.

Immediately upon the rupture of diplomatic relations the State Department notified Ambassador Gerard, who was requested to ask for his passports. About the same time the German Government acceded to a demand made by Secretary Lansing for the release of a number of Americans captured from ships sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic and taken to a German port on board one of them, the British steamer Yarrowdale. Germany had no right to hold these men as prisoners at all, since they were neutrals. Yet there was an attempt to interject their release into the international crisis as an olive branch and a concession to American feeling. The two issues were distinct; but Germany, by her subsequent action, managed to link them together.

Ambassador Gerard requested his passports on February 5, 1917, while the release of the Yarrowdale prisoners was pending. Meantime dispatches which came to Berlin from Washington via London were blamed for misleading the German Government into thinking that the United States was detaining Count von Bernstorff, and had seized the German ships, with their crews, lying in American ports. Until it received assurances regarding the "fate" of the ex-ambassador and learned what treatment was to be meted out to the "captured" crews of the German vessels, the kaiser's government detained Ambassador Gerard, his staff, a number of Americans, including newspaper correspondents, as well as the Yarrowdale men. It practically held all Americans in Germany as prisoners for a week.

In view of the readiness of the German Government to seize upon the flimsiest excuses for its manifold disgraceful deeds, permissible doubts arose as to whether it was willingly or willfully misled by the dispatches. Every courtesy was shown to the departing German Ambassador by the Washington Government; safe conduct across the ocean was obtained for him from Great Britain; and he publicly expressed his acknowledgments. As to the German vessels, there were no seizures, and the only restraints imposed on the crews were those required by the immigration laws. Whatever the motive, the detention of Ambassador Gerard was so wanton a violation of law and usage as to constitute in itself an act of war.

While Ambassador Gerard was held incommunicado in Berlin, his mail intercepted, his telephone cut off, and telegraphic facilities denied him, the German Government actually sought to parley with him by way of revising an old treaty to apply to existing conditions. Mr. Gerard, having ceased to hold ambassadorial powers after the breaking of relations, could not enter into any such negotiations; but then the German Government had never been concerned with legalities. It blandly asked him to sign a protocol, the main purpose of which was to protect Germans and their interests in the United States in the event of war.

The proposed protocol, besides containing a formal reratification of the American-Prussian treaties of 1799 and 1828 regarding mutual treatment of nationals caught in either belligerent country in case of war, provided for some remarkable additions as a "special arrangement" should war be declared.

Germans in the United States and Americans in Germany were to be entitled to conduct their businesses and continue their domicile unmolested, but could be excluded from fortified places and other military areas. Or if they chose, they were free to leave, with their personal property, except such as was contraband. If they remained they were to enjoy the exercise of their private rights in common with neutral residents. They were not to be transferred to concentration camps nor their property sequestered except under conditions applying to neutral property. Patent rights of the respective nationals in either country were not to be declared void nor be transferred to others. No contracts between Germans and Americans were to be canceled or suspended, nor were citizens of either country to be impeded in fulfilling their obligations arising thereunder. Finally Germany required that enemy merchant ships in either country should not be forced to leave port unless allowed a binding safe conduct by all the enemy sea powers.

In short, Germany asked that in the event of war her nationals and her ships and commercial interests in the United States be regarded as on a neutral footing and exempt from all military law. They were to be as free and unrestricted as in peace time.

Mr. Gerard refused to sign the protocol after he had ceased to exercise ambassadorial functions. Thereupon Count Montgelas, chief of the American department of the Foreign Office, hinted that his refusal to sign it might affect the status of Americans in Germany and their privilege of departure. The reference was to American press correspondents in Berlin, whose fate was apparently thought to weigh with American public opinion. This threat to detain newspaper representatives as supposedly important pieces on the diplomatic chessboard before war was declared brought a firm refusal from Mr. Gerard to yield to such pressure. He also expressed doubt whether the newspaper representatives could be utilized to urge acceptance of the protocol under pain of detention. Thenceforth nothing further was heard of the protocol. Germany was undoubtedly exercising duress in requiring Mr. Gerard to sign it, since his passports were withheld and a needless guard had been placed round the American Embassy.

It appeared that the protocol had also been submitted to the State Department by the Swiss Minister in Washington. Secretary Lansing finally disposed of it. In a communication to Dr. Ritter he said the United States Government refused to modernize and extend the treaties as Germany proposed, and indicated that the Government held the treaties null and void since Germany herself had grossly violated her obligations under them. The treaty of 1828, for example, contained this clause governing freedom of maritime commerce of either of the contracting parties when the other was at war:

"The free intercourse and commerce of the subjects or citizens of the party remaining neuter with the belligerent powers shall not be interrupted.

"On the contrary, in that case, as in full peace, the vessels of the neutral party may navigate freely to and from the ports and on the coasts of the belligerent parties, free vessels making free goods, insomuch that all things shall be adjudged free which shall be on board any vessel belonging to the neutral party, although such things belong to an enemy of the other.

"And the same freedom shall be extended to persons who shall be on board a free vessel, although they should be enemies to the other party, unless they be soldiers in actual service of such an enemy."

Secretary Lansing pointed out another clause of equal import in the treaty of 1799, providing:

"All persons belonging to any vessels of war, public or private, who shall molest or insult in any manner whatever the people, vessel, or effects of the other party, shall be responsible in their persons and property for damages and interests, sufficient security for which shall be given by all commanders of private armed vessels before they are commissioned."

Germany was reminded of her violations of these stipulations in strong terms. Said Secretary Lansing:

"Disregarding these obligations, the German Government has proclaimed certain zones of the high seas in which it declared without reservation that all ships, including those of neutrals, will be sunk, and in those zones German submarines have in fact, in accordance with this declaration, ruthlessly sunk merchant vessels and jeopardized or destroyed the lives of American citizens on board.

"Moreover, since the severance of relations between the United States and Germany certain American citizens in Germany have been prevented from removing from the country. While this is not a violation of the terms of the treaties mentioned, it is a disregard of the reciprocal liberty of intercourse between the two countries in times of peace and cannot be taken otherwise than as an indication of the purpose on the part of the German Government to disregard, in the event of war, the similar liberty of action provided for in Article 23 of the treaty of 1799—the very article which it is now proposed to interpret and supplement almost wholly in the interests of the large number of German subjects residing in the United States and enjoying in their persons or property the protection of the United States Government."

In addition to declining to enter into the special protocol Germany proposed, Secretary Lansing significantly added:

"The Government is seriously considering whether or not the treaty of 1828 and the revised articles of the treaties of 1785 and 1799 have not been in effect abrogated by the German Government's flagrant violations of their provisions, for it would be manifestly unjust and inequitable to require one party to an agreement to observe its stipulations and to permit the other party to disregard them.

"It would appear that the mutuality of the undertaking has been destroyed by the conduct of the German authorities."

The meaning of this passage was that as Germany was deemed to have abrogated the treaties by sinking American ships, the German vessels immured in American harbors would be under no treaty protection should war be declared, and would be immediately seized by the American Government. Germany had thus destroyed the protection they would have received in case of war.

The intimidation exercised on Ambassador Gerard to obtain his signature to the protocol and its submission by Dr. Ritter to Secretary Lansing showed that Germany was nervously concerned about safeguarding her interests in the United States and feared for the safety of her nationals in the pending crisis. Ample assurances presently came to Berlin, however, that, during the diplomatic break at any rate, the American Government would not resort to Teutonic methods. Count von Bernstorff was safe; no ships had been seized; no crews arrested; no other German persons or interests molested. Thereupon Ambassador Gerard and an entourage of some 120 Americans received their passports and left the German capital on February 10, 1917, for the United States via Switzerland and Spain.

Germany was less ready to release the Americans known as the Yarrowdale prisoners. Her Government still appeared to fear that the crews of German warships in American ports were in danger, and evidently wanted hostages at hand lest any trouble befell them at the hands of the American military authorities. Secretary Lansing demanded their release on February 3, 1917, when relations were broken. Germany assented, then withdrew her assent. A second request for their freedom and for an explanation of their continued detention was made on February 13, 1917. At this date the men had been held as prisoners of war for forty-four days contrary to international law. After being captured from Allied vessels sunk by the German raider, they were taken before a prize court at Swinemunde, when their status was determined. Neutral merchant seamen, according to Germany, must be held as prisoners of war because they had served and taken pay on armed enemy vessels. Germany disclosed for the first time that she was treating armed merchantmen as ships of war and regarded neutral seamen found on such vessels as combatants. The German raider had captured altogether 103 subjects of neutral states. They were not imprisoned because they had committed hostile acts, which would have justified their detention. They were penalized for being on enemy vessels. The American Government insisted that Germany had no right to hold any Americans as war prisoners unless they committed hostile acts. Germany had no answer to make to that contention. But she did not free them. "They will be released just as soon as we learn of the fate of the German crews in American ports," said Herr Zimmermann, Foreign Secretary.

Germany had already been assured that the crews were in no danger. The conviction grew that she meant to detain the Yarrowdale seamen as hostages pending a determination of the crisis as to peace or war. The Administration had been inclined to subordinate all collateral issues between the two countries to the major and vital one created by the submarine peril; but the plight of these seamen caused their case to become one of the chief factors in the crisis. Germany seemed to conclude that their continued detention, in view of the indignation roused in Washington by such a wanton violation of international law, to say nothing of the open insult hurled at the dignity and good faith of the United States, would only precipitate war. On February 16, 1917, came a report that the men had been released. This proved to be a false alarm. On February 26, 1917, Berlin notified that their release, although ordered "some time ago," had been deferred because an infectious disease had been discovered in their concentration camp at Brandenburg. They were consequently placed in quarantine "in the interest of neutral countries." On March 2, 1917, Dr. Ritter informed Secretary Lansing that the transfer of the American sailors to the frontier had been arranged but delayed until the quarantine ended. On March 8, 1917, they were finally released from quarantine and sent to the Swiss frontier. Members of other neutral crews were sent home through various frontier towns. All were said to have been penniless and in rags. Apart from the necessary quarantine (a Spanish doctor found typhus in the camp), the record stands as an example of Germany's gift for unscrupulous temporizing and for using procrastination as a club to hold the United States at bay when on the brink of war.

The Reichstag met shortly after Germany had compulsorily disposed of her connections with the United States. An expected address by the kaiser's Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, had been deferred until February 27, 1917, when a tardy official recognition was made of the American action.

The most deliberate official notice of the course the United States would take was served on the German Government in the President's ultimatum arising out of the torpedoing of the Sussex early in 1916. If Germany continued her ruthless sea warfare, the President warned her, "the Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether." Now the time had come for the President to go even beyond that step. The day before the Reichstag listened to the Chancellor's complaint the voice of the American President was again heard in the Capitol at Washington.[Back to Contents]