Castles of Steel (106 page)

On important matters, he cared little about the views of members of his Cabinet, but he kept a tight finger on the pulse of public opinion. Wilson’s own underlying sympathies were with Britain and the Allies and he told the British ambassador, “Everything that I love most in the world is at stake. . . . If they [the Germans] succeed, we shall be forced to take such measures of defense here as will be fatal to our form of government and to American ideals.” Wilson’s aversion to war and his sense of America’s higher mission were, he was certain, shared by the overwhelming majority of his countrymen; Congress, he knew, had strong isolationist leanings. Accordingly, he was determined that America remain neutral. From the beginning, the effort to preserve this neutrality was arduous; ultimately, it became herculean. At bottom, the difference between Great Britain and Germany was that the injuries inflicted by the two belligerents upon America were of unequal magnitude: the British navy stopped ships and sometimes seized property; the German navy sank ships and sometimes killed people.

Wilson had been at lunch on Saturday, May 8, 1915, when news of the
Lusitania
sinking was brought to him. By evening, he knew that over a thousand lives, many of them American, had been lost. Quietly, he slipped out into the night and, ignoring a light rain, walked alone along Pennsylvania Avenue. Returning to the White House, he retreated into his study. Over the weekend, he consulted no one, went to church, played golf, and, on Sunday evening, sat down to write the speech he was scheduled to give in Philadelphia the following day. On Monday, he addressed 15,000 people, many of them newly naturalized citizens. America, he told them, was a peaceful nation and therefore, “the example of America must be a special example . . . the example, not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.” In Philadelphia, Wilson’s words stirred prolonged cheering; when this language reached England, mention of the word “America” was publicly booed and hissed.

[The
Lusitania
crisis coincided with turbulent events in the president’s private life. On August 6, 1914, the second day of the war in Europe, Ellen Wilson, Woodrow’s wife of twenty-nine years, had died of Bright’s disease in their White House bedroom. On May 4, 1915, three days before the sinking of the
Lusitania,
Wilson had declared his love to a widow named Edith Galt and had been gently rebuffed. Undeterred, Wilson wrote to her after his Philadelphia speech, “I do not know just what I said in Philadelphia . . . because my heart was in such a whirl.”]

On Tuesday, May 11, the Cabinet met and Wilson read aloud the typed draft of a note he had written to Germany regarding the
Lusitania.
In the note he expressed disbelief that the German government could have sanctioned so illegal and inhumane an act and then went on to explore in moral terms the nature of submarine warfare against merchant shipping:

The government of the United States desires to call the attention of the Imperial German Government . . . to . . . the practical impossibility of employing submarines in the destruction of commerce without disregarding those rules of fairness, reason, justice and humanity which all modern opinion regards as imperative. It is practically impossible for the officers of a submarine at sea to visit a merchantman at sea and examine her papers and cargo. It is practically impossible for them to make a prize of her; and if they cannot put a prize crew on board her, they cannot sink her without leaving her crew and all on board to the mercy of the sea in her small boats. . . . Manifestly, submarines cannot be used against merchantmen . . . without an inevitable violation of many sacred principles of justice and humanity.

Despite the careful, pedagogic tone of Wilson’s language, Bryan objected that the draft was too pro-British and reiterated his opposition to Americans traveling on ships belonging to nations at war. Robert Lansing, the State Department Counselor, riposted that it was too late for that; the American government already had told American citizens that it would hold the German government to “a strict accountability” for American lives and property. The United States “has permitted in silence hundreds of American citizens to travel in British steamships crossing the war zone.” Now, some of them had died. The only course, Lansing urged, was to demand an official disavowal of the attack and a guarantee that it would not happen again. Bryan disagreed and demanded that the United States treat the British and Ger-man systems of economic coercion—blockade and submarine warfare—as equally objectionable; whatever protest was sent to Berlin, he said, must be balanced by an equally vigorous protest to London. The secretary of state was overruled and the American note sent to Berlin emphasized the right of American citizens to sail wherever they wished on whatever ship they chose.

[Naturally, German newspapers vociferously agreed with Bryan. An American passenger on a British merchant ship was called a
Schutzengel,
guardian angel, and one published caricature depicted a mate reporting to the captain of a British ship that the vessel was ready to sail. “Are you sure the American
Schutzengel
is on board?” the captain asks.]

Meanwhile, a German embassy official in Washington made a statement that made things worse. Declaring that it was certain that
Lusitania
had been armed and was transporting munitions, Dr. Dernburg declared that if Americans traveled on unarmed ships carrying no contraband they would be “as safe as if they were in a cradle.” However, all armed vessels carrying contraband would be sunk on sight and Americans traveling on these vessels would be “traveling on a volcano.” This message, challenging a right Americans had been encouraged to believe they inherently possessed—the right to travel freely on the high seas—stirred a fresh wave of anger. Still, Wilson remained cautious, telling both Sir Cecil Spring-Rice and the German ambassador, Count Johann von Bernstorff, that he was awaiting details.

In Germany, where Schwieger and the men of
U-20
had been proclaimed heroes, Wilson’s note, arriving on May 15, provoked more bitter argument. Already, Bachmann and Tirpitz had replied to the chancellor’s appeal of May 6, warning Bethmann-Hollweg that submarine operations must either be continued without modification or abandoned outright. To deal with their obstinacy, the chancellor appealed to the kaiser. The same day, May 10—after the
Lusitania
’s sinking but before receipt of Wilson’s protest note—William had told Bachmann that “for the immediate future, no neutral vessel shall be sunk. This is necessary on political ground for which the chancellor is responsible. It is better that an enemy ship be allowed to pass than that a neutral shall be destroyed. A renewal of a sharper procedure is kept in view.” Subsequently, Bethmann-Hollweg, assuming that this order had been circulated to the fleet, informed Washington that “the most definite instructions have repeatedly been issued to German war vessels to avoid attacks on neutral shipping.” The chancellor and the kaiser, however, had been deceived. The Naval Staff, now persuaded that the war at sea could be won only by U-boats, was determined not to give up, and Bachmann deliberately did not issue the emperor’s order to the fleet. Behind this disobedience lay an important change in German thinking about the ends and means of naval warfare. By the end of April 1915, the naval command realized that its original justification for beginning submarine warfare against commerce—as simple retaliation against the British blockade—no longer sufficed. The Naval Staff now believed that the war at sea could only be won by a U-boat offensive against merchant shipping. Accordingly, the U-boat campaign was represented within the navy and to the German people as an inevitable evolution in naval warfare, coming in a form perhaps unprecedented but unquestionably legitimate. Admiral Scheer expressed the widespread conviction of his fellow officers when he said, “In a comparatively short space of time, U-boat warfare against commerce has become a form of warfare which . . . is adapted to the nature of modern war and must remain a part of it. For us Germans, U-boat warfare upon commerce is a deliverance. It has put British predominance at sea in question. Being pressed by sheer necessity we must legalize this new weapon, or, to speak more accurately, accustom the world to it.”

The German reply to the first American
Lusitania
note attempted to blame Great Britain for the disaster.
Lusitania,
the Germans said, was an armed auxiliary cruiser, carrying guns on its decks, that habitually carried munitions to Britain and often illegally flew the American flag. These facts, the German note continued, warranted a careful examination by the American government; until this was done, Germany would delay its response to the American demand that U-boat warfare be halted. While this note was being prepared, Ambassador Gerard spoke to the German foreign minister, Gottlieb von Jagow, and then cabled Washington: “I am myself positive that Germany will continue this form of warfare. . . . The prospect of war with America is contemplated with equanimity.”

During May—in spite of the kaiser’s May 10 order to stop sinking neutral vessels and despite the German government’s promise to the United States that neutral shipping would be spared—Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish steamers were torpedoed without warning. Bethmann-Hollweg realized that the imperial command was being disobeyed and on May 31 convened a general meeting at which the kaiser presided. At this conference, Admiral von Müller supported the chancellor’s insistence that submarine operations be moderated. Further support for moderation came from General Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of the Army General Staff, who feared the effect a break with the United States would have on other neutrals, particularly Bulgaria. Admirals Tirpitz and Bachmann “stubbornly repeated that they could not discuss any modification of U-boat orders and were only interested to know whether or not submarine operations were to be continued.” William was confronted with another of those decisions he hated to make. Personally, he supported the chancellor, yet he never wished to appear to the public as less courageous than his generals and admirals. Now, not only the military men, but also the press and the Reichstag were generating enormous pressure to unleash the submarines. William’s solution was to announce that if U-boat warfare were to be abandoned, the chancellor must publicly announce that he alone was responsible. Bethmann-Hollweg accepted this burden. Accordingly, on June 1, a new imperial command was issued that repeated the order Bachmann had suppressed a few weeks before: neutral ships were to be spared; U-boats were not to attack any vessel unless they were absolutely certain that the intended victim was an enemy. And, of supreme importance, passenger liners of all nations, even enemies, were not to be touched. Tirpitz and Bachmann lamented that this was an admission that
Lusitania
had been illegally torpedoed and an abandonment of Germany’s strongest weapon against England. Both declared that they could not be responsible for executing the order and asked to be relieved of their commands. The two admirals were commanded to remain at their posts and, this time, the order was circulated to the fleet. Bethmann-Hollweg had maintained a precarious ascendancy.

When President Wilson met with his Cabinet to consider a reply to the German note of May 28, he brought to the meeting his own typewritten draft of a message in effect setting aside the German allegations that
Lusitania
had been an auxiliary cruiser carrying munitions: “Whatever may be the facts regarding the
Lusitania,
” Wilson had written, “the principal fact is that a great steamer, primarily and chiefly a conveyance for passengers and carrying more than a thousand souls who had no part or lot in the conduct of the war, was torpedoed and sunk without so much as a challenge or a warning and that men, women and children were sent to their death in circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare.” In the note’s closing paragraph, Wilson reiterated an American position from which, throughout the months of controversy with Germany, the American government refused to retreat: “The United States cannot admit that the proclamation of a war zone . . . may be made to operate as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights . . . of American citizens bound on lawful errands as passengers on ships of belligerent nation-ality.”

It was on these points—the right of Americans to travel on belligerent ships, and the larger issue of whether Germany and Britain were being treated equally—that the president and his secretary of state ultimately broke. Germany had promised that ships flying the American flag would not be attacked; the sticking point was the safety of American citizens traveling on British liners. Bryan had watched with mounting dismay the president’s determination to confront Germany on this issue. A lifelong pacifist, the secretary of state had argued in favor of restrictions on the right of Americans to travel in the war zone on ships of belligerent powers. There was more to the growing breach: Bryan, three times his party’s candidate for president, now felt himself ignored, even humiliated, as Wilson turned increasingly to others—the ubiquitous, backstage Colonel House and the ultralegalistic Counselor Lansing—for advice. As discussions on the second
Lusitania
note continued, Bryan decided that the language in the note was provocative and must be redrafted. One who was present at the Cabinet meeting noticed that the secretary seemed to be laboring under great strain and sat back in his chair most of the time with his eyes closed. Suddenly, Bryan leaned forward and snapped, “You people are not neutral. You are taking sides.” The president, with a “steely glitter” in his eyes, responded, “Mr. Bryan, you are not warranted in making such an assertion. We all doubtless have our opinions in this matter but there are none of us who can justly be accused of being unfair.” On June 5, in an emotional interview with the president, Bryan announced that he had decided to resign, and on June 7, the Great Commoner left office. Lansing was appointed his successor; the following day, the second American note, as written by the president, was sent to Berlin.