Generally speaking, the political situation in the United States before the Five-Years War was as follows: On the one hand, owing to the influence of English ideas, which I have already mentioned, it was to be expected that a feeling of sympathy with the Entente would probably preponderate in the public mind; while on the other hand, owing to the general indifference that prevailed with regard to all that happened in Europe, and to the strong pacifist tendencies, no interference in the war was to be expected from America, unless unforeseen circumstances provoked it. At all events it was to be feared that the inflammability of the Americans' feelings would once again be under-estimated in Germany, as it had been already. It has never been properly understood in our country, despite the fact that the Manila and Venezuela affairs might have taught us a lesson in this respect. The juxtaposition in the American people's character of Pacifism and an impulsive lust of war should have been known to us, if more sedulous attention had been paid in Germany to American conditions and characteristics. The American judges affairs in Europe, partly from the standpoint of his own private sentiment of justice, and partly under the guidance of merely emotional values; but not, as was generally supposed in Germany, simply from a cold and business-like point of view. If this had been reckoned with in Germany, the terrible effect upon public opinion in America of the invasion of Belgium and of the sinking of the Lusitania– particularly in view of the influence of English propaganda – would have been adequately valued from the start.
On May 17th, 1915, in a report addressed to the Imperial Chancellor, I wrote as follows:
"It is not a bit of good glossing over things. Our best plan, therefore, is frankly to acknowledge that our propaganda in this country has, as the result of the Lusitania incident, completely collapsed. To everyone who is familiar with the American character this could have been foreseen. I therefore beg leave to point out in time, that another event like the present one would certainly mean war with the United States. Side by side in the American character there lie two apparently completely contradictory traits. The cool, calculating man of business is not recognizable when he is deeply moved and excited – that is to say, when he is actuated by what is here called 'emotion.' At such moments he can be compared only to an hysterical woman, to whom talking is of no avail. The only hope is to gain time while the attack passes over. At present it is impossible to foresee what will be the outcome of the Lusitania incident. I can only hope that we shall survive it without war. Be this as it may, however, we can only resume our propaganda when the storm has subsided."
Here I should like to intrude a few of my own views regarding the importance of public opinion in the United States.
In Europe, where people are constantly hearing about the truly extraordinary and far-reaching authority of the American President – the London Times once said that, after the overthrow of the Russian Czar, the President of the United States was the last remaining autocrat – it is difficult to form a correct estimate of the power of public opinion in the Union. In America, just as no mayor can with impunity ignore the public opinion of his city, and no governor the public opinion of his state, so the President of the Republic, despite his far-reaching authority, cannot for long run counter to the public opinion of his country. The fact has often been emphasized by Mr. Wilson himself, among others, that the American President must "keep his ear to the ground" – that is to say, must pay strict attention to public opinion and act in harmony with it. For the American statesman, whose highest ambition consists either in being re-elected, or at least in seeing his party returned to power, any other course would amount to political suicide; for any attempt at swimming against the tide will certainly be avenged at the next elections.
It must be remembered that public opinion in the United States is seldom so homogeneous and unanimous a thing as, for example, in England. Particularly in questions of foreign politics, public opinion in the Union, stretching, as it does, over a whole continent, reacts in widely varying ways in different localities, and to a very different degree. Thus, in the States bordering on the Atlantic coast, which are more closely in touch with the Old World, there is, as a rule, a very definite public opinion on European questions, while the West remains more or less indifferent. On the other hand, in the Gulf States a very lively interest is taken by the public in the Mexican problem, and the Pacific States are closely concerned with the Japanese question, matters which arouse hardly more than academic interest in other localities. This is also reflected in the American Daily Press, which does not produce papers exerting equal influence over the whole nation, but rather, in accordance with the customary geographical division of the Union into seven economic spheres of interest – namely, New York, New England, Middle Atlantic States, Southern States, Middle West, Western and Pacific States, comprises seven different daily presses, each of which gives first place to quite a different problem from the rest. It is true that the New York Press is certainly the most important mirror of American public opinion on European questions. Nevertheless, this importance should not lead to the erroneous assumption that the American Press and the New York Press are synonymous terms. The perusal of the latter does not suffice for the formation of a reliable judgment of American public opinion, with regard to certain questions which concern the whole nation; rather it is necessary also to study the leading papers of New England, the Middle Atlantic States, and particularly the West. The reports of German and English correspondents on feeling in America, which, as so often happens, are based purely on the New York Press, frequently play one false, if one relies on them for an estimate of the public opinion of the whole nation. The "Associated Press," therefore, makes it a rule with all questions of national importance, not only to reproduce extracts from the New York Press, but also to publish précis of the opinions of at least fifty leading journals from all parts of the Union.
The American daily papers are more important as a medium for influencing public opinion than as a mirror for reflecting it. The United States is the land of propaganda par excellence! Every important enterprise, of no matter what nature, has its Press agent; the greatest of all is the propaganda lasting for months, which is carried on before the biennial elections, and of the magnitude of which it is difficult for the average European to gain any conception. It is therefore not surprising that the political leaders of the country make very wide use of the Press in important questions of foreign politics, to influence public opinion in favor of the Government policy. Not only the great news agencies, but also all leading newspapers of the Union maintain their permanent special correspondents in Washington, and these are received almost daily by the Secretary of State, and as a rule once a week by the President. The information that they receive at these interviews they communicate to their papers in the greatest detail, without naming the high officials from whom it has emanated, and in this way they naturally act as megaphones through which the views of the Government are spread throughout the whole country. In foreign questions it was often striking how newspapers would hold back their comments until they had received in this way a mot d'ordre from Washington.
Of course this possibility for the Government to create opinion on concrete questions only applies so long as a firm public opinion has not already set in. As soon as the process of "crystallization," as it is called, is complete, there is nothing left for the Government but to follow the preponderating public opinion. Even a man like Mr. Wilson, who possesses an unusually high degree of self-will, has always followed public opinion, for the correct interpretation of which – apart from his own proverbial instinct – he commands the services of his secretary, Mr. Tumulty, and a large staff, as well as the organization of the Democratic party, which spreads through the length and breadth of the country. If, in a few exceptional cases, the President has set himself in opposition to public opinion, we might be sure that it would not be long before he again set his course on theirs.
CHAPTER II
THE GERMAN PROPAGANDA IN THE UNITED STATES
When I received the news of the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, I was dining with the Spanish Ambassador at the Metropolitan Club in Washington. Signor Riano and I were not for a moment in doubt as to the very serious, peace-menacing character of the incident, but we found little interest in the matter among the Americans in the club, who, as always, regarded European affairs with indifference. As to the results of the murder, I received in Washington no information, either officially or through the Press.
I therefore, on the 7th July, began my usual summer leave, which had been granted a few weeks before. For the last time I crossed the ocean on one of the proud German liners, and, indeed, on the finest of our whole merchant fleet, the Vaterland. For the last time I saw, on my arrival, the port of Hamburg and the lower Elbe in all their glory. Germans who live at home can hardly imagine with what love and what pride we foreign ambassadors and exiled Germans regarded the German shipping-lines.
A few days after I had arrived in my home at Starnberg there began strong public excitement and uneasiness over the political situation. However, of late years so many crises had been successfully averted at the eleventh hour, that this time, too, I hoped up to the last minute that a change for the better would set in. It seemed as though the responsibility for a war was too great to be borne by anyone man – whoever he might be – who would have to make the final decision.
On the wonderful, still summer evening of the 1st August, we heard across the Starnberger Lake, in all the surrounding villages, the muffled beat of drums announcing mobilization. The dark forebodings with which the sound of the drums filled me have fixed that hour indelibly in my memory.
The following day was devoted to preparations for the journey to Berlin, where I had to receive instructions before returning with all possible speed to Washington. The journey from Munich to Berlin, which could only be made in military trains, occupied forty-eight hours.
In the Wilhelmstrasse I had interviews with the authorities, the substance of which was instructions to enlighten the Government and people of the United States on the German standpoint. In doing so I was to avoid any appearance of aggression towards England, because an understanding with Great Britain had to be concluded as soon as possible. The Berlin view on the question of guilt was even then very much the same as has been set down in the memorandum of the commission of four of the 27th May, 1919, at Versailles, namely, that Russia was the originator of the war.
Further, I was informed at the Foreign Office, that in addition to some other additions to the staff of the Washington Embassy, the former Secretary of State of the Colonial Office, Dr. Dernburg, and Privy Councillor Albert, of the Ministry of the Interior, were to accompany me; the former as representative of the German Red Cross, the latter as agent of the "Central Purchasing Company." Dr. Dernburg's chief task, however, was to raise a loan in the United States, the proceeds of which were to pay for Herr Albert's purchases for the aforesaid company. For this purpose the Imperial Treasury supplied us with Treasury notes, which could only be made negotiable by my signature. This gave rise later to the legend that Dr. Dernburg was armed with millions for propaganda purposes.
Our journey was wearisome but passed off without incident. In forty-eight hours we reached Rotterdam, where we boarded the Dutch steamer Noordam. As we went aboard we were all in high spirits, for we had seen everywhere in Germany a wonderful, self-sacrificing and noble enthusiasm. On the steamer, however, which incidentally was badly overloaded, the picture changed. We suddenly found ourselves surrounded by hostile feeling, and among our fellow-passengers there were only a few friendly to the German cause. The bitter daily struggle toward which we were travelling was to begin on the ship. We plunged straight into it, and tried as far as possible to influence our fellow passengers.
At Dover the ship was inspected by a British officer; the inspection, however, passed off without any inconvenience to us, as in those first days of the war the regulations of international law were still to some extent respected. We had already made all preparations to throw the Treasury notes overboard, in case we were searched. As a curiosity I mention a comic interlude that occurred after we had left Dover Harbor. A friendly German-American from a Western State, who did not know who I was, but had recognized me as a German, accosted me with the remark: "Take care that you don't expose yourself to annoyance; the people on board think you are the German Ambassador in Washington." The excellent man was overcome with amazement when I admitted my identity. We had not had our names entered on the passengers' list, but apart from this made no secret of our journey, as it was already known in Rotterdam.
After an eleven days' voyage, we landed in New York on the 23rd August. Our arrival was a relief, as during the journey we had been overwhelmed exclusively with enemy wireless reports of French victories. Every day we had received news of the annihilation of a fresh German Army Corps. In comparison with this mental torture, the cross-fire of questions from countless American Pressmen, not altogether friendly towards Germany, was comparatively easy to bear.
As is known, American public opinion at that time had been given a one-sided view of the causes and course of the war, for England, who, immediately after the declaration of war, had cut our Transatlantic cable, held the whole of the Transatlantic news apparatus in her hands. Apart from this, however, our enemies found from the beginning very important Allies in a number of leading American newspapers, which, in their daily issue of from three to six editions, did all they could to spread anti-German feeling. In New York the bitterest attacks on Germany were made by the Herald and the Evening Telegram, which were in close touch with France, as well as the Tribune and Times, which followed in England's wake; somewhat more moderate were the Sun and the Globe; the only neutrals were the Evening Post and the American. Outside New York the Press raged against us, particularly in New England and the Middle-Atlantic States. In the South and West we were also baited by the Press, but with considerably less intensity. The only papers which could be called neutral were those of the Hearst Press, which took up an outspoken National-American standpoint, and, in addition, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, and a few minor newspapers. It was already very significant that papers like the Boston Transcript, the Brooklyn Eagle, the Baltimore Sun, and a few others opened their letter-boxes to anti-German articles, which, it is true, they condemned with fair regularity in their leading articles or editorial notes. Against this campaign, fed systematically and daily with British propaganda information – especially on the subject of German atrocities in Belgium – the small number of papers in the German language, which, moreover, were little heeded by public opinion, and at the head of which stood the old New Yorker Staatszeitung and the courageous weekly Fatherland, founded shortly after the outbreak of war by the young German-American, G. S. Vierick, could make but little headway.
On my arrival in New York, and during the next few weeks, I made an honest effort by daily interviews of the representatives of the leading daily newspapers to explain the German standpoint to the American public. I soon noticed, however, that these efforts were not only practically fruitless but that they were even fraught with certain dangers for me. The daily struggle with the Press was threatening to undermine my official position and to compromise my relations with the Washington Government so seriously that I should not have been in a position to carry through with success the diplomatic negotiations which were likely to be called for. I therefore considered it as my duty to the German people to give up, as far as I personally was concerned, all propaganda in favor of the German cause. Certainly I have had a good deal further to do with American journalists until the final rupture; but I categorically refused to grant interviews or to receive newspaper correspondents who were not prepared to treat my statements purely as confidential, private information.
I should like to take this opportunity to remark that the American journalist is far better than the reputation he enjoys in Europe. In spite of the hostile atmosphere which surrounded me in America I have never had to complain of an indiscretion. True, many minor New York reporters whom I did not receive invented statements which I had never made; but such experiences are common to all politicians in America. Moreover, the results of these journalistic tricks were almost always local and were easily contradicted. In Washington such things never occurred. The journalists there were quite extraordinarily capable and trustworthy men, who always behaved like "gentlemen." My relations with them remained very friendly to the last. In so far as I was not forced to keep silence for political reasons I have always told them the real truth. Of course, I was as little capable as the American journalists of foreseeing that the policy I was representing was doomed to ultimate failure.
Just at the time when I gave up personal propaganda in order to devote myself to my political and diplomatic activities in Washington, the financial mission of Secretary of State Dr. Dernburg had failed. President Wilson had stated clearly that it would be an unneutral act for loans to be raised in the Union by the combatant States. Our friends in high financial circles in New York regarded this decision as favorable to Germany, for they foresaw – what actually happened – that for every million received by us, our enemies would raise a hundred millions. As a result of this decision of the President, Privy Councillor Albert had to finance his purchases as far as possible privately, while Dr. Dernburg, whose time was not fully occupied by his duties as delegate of the Red Cross, which had meanwhile been organized by Geheim Oberregierungrat Meyer Gerhardt and Rittmeister Hecker, would have left America if there had remained any possibility of doing so. There was not, however, as the English inspected all neutral ships shortly after they left the American ports and – in flagrant contravention of international law, which only allows the arrest of persons who are already enrolled in the fighting forces – summarily arrested and interned every German capable of bearing arms. As Dr. Dernburg was thus an unwilling prisoner in New York he began to write articles on the world-war for the daily Press. He had a gift for explaining the causes of the war in a quiet, interesting manner, and particularly for setting out the German standpoint in a conciliatory form. His propaganda work therefore met with extraordinary success. The editors of newspapers and periodicals pressed him to contribute to their columns, and the whole New York Press readily printed all the articles he sent in to contradict the statements of the anti-Germans.
Out of this activity developed, in co-operation with the Foreign Office, Dr. Dernburg's New York Press Bureau, a solution of the propaganda question which was exceedingly welcome to me. As a private person Dr. Dernburg could say and write much that could not be said officially and therefore could not come from me. Consequently I took it for granted that – in spite of certain suggestions to the contrary – Dr. Dernburg would not be attached to the Embassy, which would only hamper his work, and also that the Press Bureau would retain its independent and unofficial character. I may take it as a well-known fact that Washington is the political, and New York the economic, capital of the United States, which has always resulted in a certain geographical division of the corresponding diplomatic duties. It naturally had its disadvantages that there should be, apart from the Consulate-General, four other independent German establishments in New York, namely, the offices of Dr. Dernburg, Privy Councillor Albert, the military attaché Captain von Papen and the naval attaché Commander Boy-Ed. In order to keep, to some extent, in touch with these gentlemen, I occasionally travelled to New York and interviewed them together in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where I usually stayed and in which Dr. Dernburg lived; for their offices, scattered as they were over the lower town, and which, moreover, I never entered, were unsuitable for the purpose. Our mutual personal relations were always of the best. On the other hand, it was naturally difficult to make any headway with our official business, since each received independent instructions from Berlin. This was least the case with Dr. Dernburg, because his responsible authority as far as propaganda was concerned was partly the Foreign Office itself and partly the semi-official "Central Office for Foreign Service." The other three gentlemen, however, were all responsible to home departments other than mine. Captain von Papen and Commander Boy-Ed frequently held back from me the instructions they had received from Berlin in order not to embarrass the Embassy by passing on military or naval information. Financially, too, the four officials were completely independent and had their own banking accounts, for which they had to account individually to their respective departments at home. Only Privy Councillor Albert had, for the purchase on a large scale of raw material, definite funds which were in any event under my control. Concerning the activities of these four gentlemen, countless legends have been spread in America and in part have found their way to Germany. In spite of all the reproaches levelled against them, and indirectly against myself, with regard to propaganda – I shall speak of the so-called conspiracies in Chapter V. – nothing has reached my ears of which these gentlemen need in any way be ashamed. Individual mistakes we have, of course, all made; in view of the ferocity and protraction of the struggle they were inevitable. But in general the German propaganda in America in no way deserves the abuse with which it has been covered, in part, too, at home. If it had really been so clumsy or ineffective as the enemy Press afterwards claimed, the Entente and their American partisans would not have set in motion such gigantic machinery to combat it. One need only read G. Lechartier's book, "Intrigues et Diplomaties à Washington," to see what importance was attached to our propaganda by the enemy. In spite of all the bitterness which the author infuses into his fictitious narration, admiration for the German activity in the United States shines through the whole book. Further, at the end of 1918 a Commission of the Senate appointed to investigate German propaganda, as a result of the publication of protocols on this subject, repeatedly stated that its work had in no way been in vain, but rather its after effects had made themselves strongly felt "like poison gas" long after America's entry into the war. One may well venture to say that, had it not been for the serious crisis caused by the submarine war, it would probably in time have succeeded in completely neutralizing the anti-German campaign.
As regards our justification for openly championing the German cause before the people of the United States by written and spoken word, this is self-evident in a country which recognizes the principles of freedom of the Press and free speech. Apart from this, however, the American Government have themselves provided a precedent in this connection during the civil war, when President Lincoln in 1863 sent to England the famous preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, whose sympathies were strongly on the side of the Federals. Through his speeches, afterwards published as "Patriotic Addresses," he did much towards swaying public opinion in favor of the Northern States. In this war, too, America, after abandoning her neutrality, has carried out vigorous propaganda in neutral countries, as is shown by the mission of the well-known New York supporter of woman suffrage, Mrs. Norman Whitehouse, under the auspices of the official Press Bureau and with the special approval of Secretary of State Lansing. Moreover our justification has been expressly upheld by a statement of Commissioner Bruce Bielaski of the American Law Department, who appeared as chief witness against us before the above mentioned Commission of Inquiry. He declared that there was no law in the United States which, before her entry into the war, rendered illegal German or any other foreign propaganda. Why all this noise then? – it is reasonable to ask. Why, then, has the suggestion persisted at home and abroad, almost from the appearance of Dr. Dernburg until the present day, that we had, with our propaganda campaign, made ourselves guilty of treachery to the United States?
From the moral point of view, too, no exception can be taken to the German propaganda. The United States was neutral and wished to remain so. The German propaganda was working for the same end. I have never heard of a single case of bribery by our representatives. If money was spent on our side, it was purely for the purpose of spreading articles and pamphlets pleading United States neutrality. Applications were frequently made to us by writers and editors who from inner conviction were ready to write and circulate articles of this kind, but were not financially in a position to do so. The leaders of German propaganda would surely have been neglectful of their duty if in such cases they had not provided the necessary funds. All Governments in the world have always proceeded in a similar way, and in particular that of the United States since their entry into the war, as is shown by the case of the Freie Zeitung of Bern – therefore equally in a neutral country. These facts must throw a strange light on the inquiry of the American Senate into German propaganda, delayed as it was until last winter and carried through with such elaborate machinery. It is obvious that beneath it all there lay – what irony! – a purely propagandist purpose, namely, that of humiliating Germany in the person of her late official representative accredited to the United States, and to make her appear contemptible in the eyes of the uncritical public!
Whereas in the first months of the war no one in America had thought of connecting "German Propaganda" with anything shocking, our opponents afterwards succeeded in disseminating the idea that a few offences against the law committed by Imperial and American Germans represented an important, even the most important, part of the German propaganda work. So it was brought about that even in the time before America's entry into the war, everyone who openly stood up for Germany's cause was stamped by the expression "German Propagandist" as a person of doubtful integrity. The gradual official perpetuation of this admittedly misleading identification of our absolutely unexceptionable propaganda with a few regrettable offences against the American penal code – this and no other was the object of that inquiry by the Senate. The prejudicial headlines under which the published articles were printed, such as "Brewery and Brandy Interests" and "German-Bolshevist Propaganda," themselves sufficed to indicate that our propaganda was to be crucified between two "malefactors"; for to the average American citizen there is nothing more horrifying than the distillery on the one hand and Bolshevism on the other. In this connection I must not omit to mention that the great majority of the documents laid before the Commission had been secured by means of bribery or theft. It is also worth while to remind the reader of the significant words of Senator Reed, a member of the Commission, who said at one point in the examination: "I am interested in trying to distil some truth from a mass of statements which are so manifestly unfair and distorted that it is hard to characterize them in parliamentary language."
As for the fantastic figures with which the Americans have undertaken to estimate the cost of our propaganda, they rest – in so far as they are not simply the fruit of a malicious imagination – on the, to say the least of it, superficial hypothesis that all the money paid out by the different German offices from the outbreak of war until the breaking off of diplomatic relations between Germany and America, the amount of which has been arrived at on the strength of a minute scrutiny of the books of all the banks with which these offices have done business, were used for purposes of propaganda. As a matter of fact, of course, far the greater part of this outlay went to finance the very extensive purchases of Privy Councillor Albert as well as certain business transactions concluded by Captain von Papen, which will be discussed later. In comparison with this the sum we devoted to propaganda work was quite small. The Press Bureau was frequently very appreciably hampered by the fact that even for quite minor expenditure outside the fixed budget, previous sanction had to be obtained from Berlin. Consequently much useful work would have had to remain undone if, particularly in the first months of the war, self-sacrificing German-Americans to whom it was only of the slightest interest that the German point of view should be accurately and emphatically explained, had not placed small sums at the disposal of the leaders of our propaganda. In the two and a half years between the outbreak of war and the rupture between Germany and America the sums paid out from official funds for propaganda work in the Union – including minor contributions for other countries, as, for example, the pictures distributed from New York over South America and Eastern Asia – do not, all told, exceed a million dollars. That is surely only a small fraction of what England and France have expended during the war in order, in spite of very thorough preparation in peace time, to win over American public opinion to their cause. It is actually only a sixth of what, according to the Chicago Tribune on the 1st November, 1919, the official American Press Bureau of Mr. George Creel has spent in order to "cement enthusiasm for the war" during the eighteen months between America's entry into the war and the conclusion of the Armistice. The thirty-five to fifty million dollars which, according to the statements of our enemies, were swallowed up by German propaganda in the United States belong, therefore, to the realms of fable.