America Fallen!

Front matter

The Sequel to the European War

By

J. BERNARD WALKER

Chapter 1

I

THE PEACE OF GENEVA

The Treaty of Geneva, which brought to a close the European War, was signed, on March 1, 1916, by the peace plenipotentiaries of no less than thirteen nations.

Throughout the spring, summer, and winter of 1915, the titanic conflict, enlarged by the entry of over 3,000,000 troops of Italy and the Balkan States into the theater of operations, swayed to and fro across the blood-soaked soil of Europe, with a ferocity and slaughter which sickened even the most hardened veterans of the war. Weight of numbers and a crushing superiority in artillery drove the armies of the Dual Monarchy back upon Budapest and Vienna, held the redoubtable Von Hindenberg within his own frontiers, and rolled the German armies in France and Belgium slowly back to the Rhine and the Dutch frontier.

Undismayed, and fighting against heavy odds with a magnificent courage and steadiness, Germany took up a seemingly impregnable position on the right bank of the Rhine and marshaled her forces for a strictly defensive campaign in 1916. Late in November of 1915, however, when by common consent the warring hosts on the Western battle line had apparently settled down for comparative rest and recuperation during the winter months in a quasi-defensive, similar to that of 1915, Holland suddenly declaring war, entrenched herself heavily on the German border, and a vast Allied reserve army, entering Holland by the Belgian-Dutch border, and by way of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, concentrated to the east of the Rhine, drove down in a resistless offensive into West , taking the German army in the right flank and rear, and captured the great centers of artillery and ammunition supply in Essen and the surrounding districts.

Germany, realizing that, with the Krupp and other factories in the hands of the enemy, the war must end automatically, accepted the friendly offices of the Swiss Government and the peace conference opened at Geneva.

And thus it came about that there gathered on the shores of the placid lake the most momentous conclave in all the history of the world.

Contrary to universal expectation the deliberations moved forward with a swiftness which, considering the enormous interests at stake, appeared to a nervously apprehensive world simply incredible. And herein was seen the advantage, costly though it had been in blood and treasure, of carrying the gigantic struggle through to an absolutely decisive issue.

The earlier deliberations, relative to the readjustment of boundaries and territory, moved rapidly to their expected results. Russia, content with the possession of Constantinople, and the extension of her frontier to the Carpathians, agreed readily to the re-creation of Poland as an autonomous and "buffer" state between herself and Germany. To Roumania was given Transylvania on the condition, arranged previously to her entrance into the war, that she return to Bulgaria the territory wrested from her during the second Balkan War, and Servia was enlarged by the acquisition of Herzegovina and Bosnia. The boundary between Italy and Austria was rectified so as to restore to Italy her lost provinces. France, as the reward of the heroic struggle of her citizen soldiery, regained possession of Alsace and Lor . Japan was permitted to hold Kiao-Chou and acquire from China the lease formerly held by Germany, a pledge being given for the maintenance of the "Open Door" in that country.

So far, so good; but when it came to the insistence by the Allies on an indemnity of fifteen billion dollars, the first installments of which were to be paid into the Belgian treasury, Germany presented an adamantine front. And to the demands of Great Britain that the German fleet be reduced by the distribution of its major units among the fleets of the Allies, she retorted that if the transfer of so much as a ship's launch to a foreign flag were again suggested, Germany would withdraw at once from the convention, and "would fight it out until the last mark, the last loaf of bread, and the last man was gone!"

The convention was adjourned for a week; and in view of the uncompromising front presented by Germany and Great Britain, and the probability of a continuance of the war to the bitter end, the world was thrown into a state of profound despondency and foreboding.

The next session was marked by the most dramatic incident of the whole conference. No sooner had the meeting been declared open than the German plenipotentiary abruptly announced that he had received instructions from Berlin to state that, if no more mention were made of the dismemberment of her fleet, Germany would agree to pay an indemnity to the Allies of fifteen billion dollars, and give the customary pledges therefor.

The curt announcement of Germany's assumption of this stupendous obligation produced, even in that well-poised assembly, a barely-checked murmur of astonishment. The British plenipotentiary asked for a three days' adjournment. He was instructed by his home government to stand firm for the disruption of the German navy; but on his cabling that it was the unanimous opinion of the rest of the Allies, that the assumption by Germany of this enormous indebtedness would so far cripple her financially as to render any material increase of her naval forces impossible before the existing ships were becoming obsolete, he was instructed to accept the German conditions.

And so, on the 1st of March, 1916, the thirteen signatures which ended the greatest moral and material tragedy in the whole history of the world were appended and peace settled over the stricken people of Europe.

And, thereafter, men said to one another when they met: "How came it about that Germany so suddenly agreed to pay that fifteen-billion-dollar indemnity?"

Chapter 2

II

THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AT POTSDAM

On the morning of the day following the signing of the Peace of Geneva, Germany's plenipotentiary, Count Von Buelow, entered the Council Chamber at Potsdam punctually at the hour appointed. There was gloom upon his face and weariness, too; for throughout the night journey to Berlin, the burden of that fifteen-billion-dollar indemnity, which the Kaiser had authorized him to impose upon stricken Germany, had lain heavily upon his mind. Heavy gloom sat also upon the faces of the distinguished company around the council board. Von Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor was there, and the foreign secretary, Von Jagow; Falkenhayn, also, the Chief of the Great General Staff, and next to him, Von Tirpitz, creator and controlling mind of the German Navy. Present also was the chief of the German Secret Service, and last, but not least, the Chief of the German Official Press Bureau.

Von Buelow had scarcely taken his seat when the murmur of desultory conversation suddenly ceased, and every man stiffened to the habitual pose of military and state decorum, as the Kaiser entered and strode to the head of the table.

Was he changed by the tragic happenings of the last twenty months? Yes, and no. The hair had whitened, and the stupendous burden of responsibility had bowed somewhat, as well it might, the shoulders upon which it had borne so heavily. But there was something in that flashing blue eye, in the set of the lips, and in the whole atmosphere of that ever-to-be-remembered face, which showed that he was still a Prussian of the Prussians, and that the indomitable spirit of the latest, if not the last of the Hohenzollerns, burned unquenched and unquenchable in the soul of the man.

Obeying the scarcely perceptible wave of his hand, the distinguished company seated themselves with their Kaiser for a council which, as subsequent events proved with lightning-like rapidity, was to be big with the fate, not this time of Europe, but of the great Western Hemisphere.

And thus he spoke:

"The Day has come and gone and Germany has lost! What may have been and what yet may be the purposes of an inscrutable Providence neither you nor I can tell. This much I do know, that if the sword was thrust into our hands by the Almighty for our own chastisement, it is for us to bow our heads in submission. That God sent us into battle for our own permanent undoing, I do not believe. Our beloved Fatherland has set up before the eyes of the world a kultur too broad and beneficent, and the influence of that kultur upon the great world outside of Germany has been too profound and will prove too lasting, for God ever to contemplate the fall and passing away of the great German Empire. As surely as gold is purified by fire, so surely shall Germany emerge, freed of all dross and with more splendid potentialities for the future, out of this seven-times heated furnace of the war.

"I ask you to consider that Germany has passed through this supreme ordeal with her vitality unimpaired and her military prestige enhanced. I will even say that she is the stronger for her territorial losses. Alsace and Lorraine have ever been a thorn in the side of Germany—the one impassable barrier to cordial relations with our great French neighbor, whose good will, as you well know, it has been my earnest endeavor to win. And as for our lost colonial possessions, I, as well as you, have long recognized that they were too widely scattered, too little coordinated, to carry much military value; moreover, as outlets for our expanding population, they have failed of their purpose.

"Of the crime of Kiao-Chou I will say no more than that Germany never forgets!

"Has Germany, then, no future beyond the seas? She has, most assuredly, and it lies (would that we had recognized the fact, and recognizing, acted upon it long ago) in the Western Hemisphere, in the southern half of the great American continent. South America beckons the German colonist and calls to us for the further exploitation of its abundant natural resources by that combination of German science, capital, and organization, with which our competitors have found it impossible sucessfully to compete.

"But if, by purchase or by such means as the time and circumstance may demand, we are to found a colony or colonies in South America, it will be necessary to clear the air by disposing, once and for all, of that curious fiction which has come to be known as the 'Monroe Doctrine.' The peculiar claims set forth therein by the United States have been described as 'the most magnificent bluff in all history and, so far, the most successful.' But you and I know, and it is known in all the chancellories of Europe, that the bravado has been successful only by our sufferance, and because the great problems of Europe, for which the late war has been fought, called for more pressing solution.

"I have spoken of the 'Monroe Doctrine' as a fiction—perhaps I had better have described it as composed of many fic , not the least among which has been the belief that back of this policy lay the strength of the British fleet. I know not with certainty how much of truth there has been in that assumption; but, thanks to the work of our plenipotentiary at Geneva, an understanding, secret and supplementary to the general treaty, was reached with the British representative, by which, in consideration of our withdrawal from the Euphrates Valley (which the collapse of the Turkish Empire has rendered less attractive to German enterprise than it was), Great Britain pledges herself to a neutral attitude on the 'Monroe Doctrine,' except so far as it affects her own North American possessions.

"With the fleet of Great Britain eliminated as an element in the problem, it becomes possible for Germany, as I shall show you later, to achieve, through the instrumentality of her fleet, a feat of arms which, in a swift series of operations, shall restore our naval and military prestige in the eyes of the German people, demolish for all time the 'Monroe Doctrine,' and transfer from the shoulders of Germany to those of the United States of America the burden of the fifteen-billion-dollar indemnity, imposed upon us by the Treaty to which, only yesterday, we appended our signature.

"I have said that the war has added to our military prestige—I will go further and say that, in the eyes of all the world, and particularly among those who follow the profession of arms, our military prestige has been immeasurably increased. We set out to fight the two greatest military powers, next to ourselves; and alone we would have crushed them utterly. As the event has proved, Germany and Austria found themselves confronted by the embattled hosts of no less than ten nations. Nevertheless, we carried the war into the enemy's territory, and, so far as Germany is concerned, we presented an impregnable wall, which was finally pierced, only by overwhelming numbers, and, thanks largely to our American friends, by a preponderance of artillery against which even the indomitable soldiers of Germany could not prevail.

"It is only by the mass of the German people that these things are not well understood. We, of the ruling class, you will remember, told the people, brought up as they were to believe in the absolute invincibility of the German army, that within a month of the declaration of war we should be in Paris and within two months in St. Petersburg. Instead, they have seen that army arrested, held fast, and finally thrown back in defeat upon its own borders. The Socialists of Germany, working upon the minds of a defeated and dis people, are laying the blame for this disaster upon the shoulders of the very class which has made Germany what it is. We, it is, who have made the German Empire and given to it the only system of government which, bearing in mind the century-long training and peculiar temperament of its people, can maintain it intact amid the powerful and jealous nations of Europe, and carry it forward to the greater future that awaits it.

"The prestige of the army and navy and the confidence of the people in its ruling class can be restored only by some swift and brilliant feat of arms—and in view of the rapidly augmenting strength of the Socialistic upheaval, that feat of arms cannot be performed too soon.

"The United States, as you are well aware, has recently reaffirmed the 'Monroe Doctrine' by definite Congressional action, forbidding the acquisition by any alien power of harbors or coaling stations which are located within striking distance of the Panama Canal, and which might serve as a base for hostile operations in the Caribbean.

"That, gentlemen, is a clear and bold—I had almost said defiant—expression of one of the most important among the great foreign policies which the United States, since the period of the Spanish War, has adopted and proclaimed to the world in no unmeasured terms. In addition to the 'Monroe Doctrine' I have but to refer to their championship of the 'Open Door' in China, to the matter of the exclusion of the Asiatics, and to the construction and fortification of the Panama Canal; which great work and the Caribbean, as I foresee it, in the future naval wars of the New World, will be what Gibraltar and the Mediterranean were to the contending navies of the eight century. The ultimate entry of the great republic of the Western Hemisphere into the field of world politics was, of course, inevitable; but that this entrance would be marked by the adoption of a line of policies so bold as these, involving the possibility, nay the certainty, of conflict sooner or later with the great naval and military powers of the world, I, for one, was not prepared to believe.

"Had there been in the United States that intimate and well-balanced relationship and co-operation between the diplomatic and the naval and military services which obtains in Germany, the growth of these ambitious policies would have been marked by a commensurate growth of the military and naval forces of the country. This co-operation, as you are well aware, has been conspicuously absent. The United States Congress, always fearful and jealous of what it is pleased to term 'militarism,' has failed to listen to the warnings of its military advisers; with the result, to-day, that it is endeavoring to support a line of first-class international policies with a third-class navy, and with military forces which are so insignificant that, in the eyes of a first-class military nation, they may be regarded as practically negligible. The burden of responsibility for these conditions lies not upon the naval and military advisers of Congress, but upon Congress itself; which, as our ambassadors have from time to time informed us, does not hesitate to play politics with matters which involve the very life and death of the nation itself.

"Should the blow which Germany, in the hour of her dire need, is about to strike against the United States lead that great country to a realization of the necessity at all times for proper naval and military preparedness, the regret which I and Ger feel at having to break our friendly relations with a country with which we have always lived in perfect amity, will be tempered by the thought that, out of her temporary loss she will reap a future gain of inestimable benefit.

"It is noteworthy that our swift descent upon that great country could not be carried out with any reasonable hope of success, had the United States Congress but given heed to the words of its first soldier-president which were spoken, if my memory serves me well, in his first annual address. 'To be prepared for war,' said Washington, 'is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.'"

The Kaiser ceased speaking and, turning to the Foreign Secretary, he said: "Von Jagow, have you had the necessary conversations with the Danish minister, and have you requested him to be present?"

"The conversations were eminently satisfactory, your Majesty. The Danish minister is in the anteroom and awaits your commands."

"Send for him," said the Kaiser.

The Danish minister entered, and he was no sooner seated than the Kaiser, without any preliminaries, abruptly asked, "What sum do you name as the purchase price of the island of St. Thomas in the West Indies?"

"Twenty-five million dollars, your Majesty," said the minister.

"We will give you that sum for the island," said the Kaiser. "The only stipulation is that you shall pledge yourself to secrecy, leaving it to Germany to announce, at such time as may seem best, the transfer of the island. Here are the necessary papers, and if you will affix your signature the transfer can be consummated here and now."

The Danish minister smiled, took the pen, signed the documents, and, after the customary felicitations, withdrew.

Chapter 3

III

AN UNDEFENDED TREASURE LAND

"Gentlemen," said the Kaiser, as the door closed upon the retiring Danish minister, "I have frequently said to you in this council chamber that the future of Germany lies upon the sea. To-day, in spite of the enforced inaction of our fleet during the war, I hold to that doctrine with unshaken conviction. Hence I did not hesitate, Von Buelow, to instruct you to offer fifteen billion dollars as the price of redeeming the fleet.

"If you ask me, as all Germany, doubtless, is asking itself at this very hour, how it will be possible for our stricken Fatherland to discharge this enormous obligation, I answer that not a single pfennig of this indemnity shall be raised by the taxation of my beloved people, or be paid out of their national treasury.

"Gentlemen, you may rest assured that when I authorized the acceptance of the indemnity, I had already determined on a plan by which this stupendous sum could be realized without adding to the heavy obligations which the war had already imposed upon us."

Springing to his feet, the Kaiser swept his outstretched arm to the westward, and his voice took on that incisive staccato which indicates in him the deepest feeling: "On yonder side of the Atlantic lies an undefended treasure land, fifty billions of whose one hundred and fifty billions of wealth are to be found on the seaboard, and within easy reach of an expeditionary force and the guns of a hostile fleet. It is my purpose that the German Navy, on whose behalf I have assumed the indemnity, shall be made the instrument for se the means of payment. It will appeal to your sense of the fitness of things that the United States, which has contributed so largely to our defeat, should pay the costs of this war and that the navy should play the part of collector.

"If it should be said that this descent upon the coasts of the United States is a premeditated attack upon a friendly power, our reply will be, that, though the charge is technically true, ethically it is false. When that neutral country turned itself into an arsenal for the supply of guns, ammunition, and military stores and equipment to the enemies of Germany, it became in effect an active participant in our overthrow. You, Von Falkenhayn, will agree with me that the military supplies furnished to the Allies by the United States were of more value to them than several army corps. It was the preponderance of artillery, due in large measure to the purchases from America, that was the ultimate cause of our loss of the war.

"Although it was technically correct and in agreement with international law, the material assistance rendered by the United States was, I repeat, morally wrong; and in sending my fleet to exact from that country both the indemnity and the cost to Germany of the war, or twenty billion dollars in all, I feel that I am performing no more than an act of righteous retribution.

"The object of our expedition will be greatly facilitated by the fact that the dreadnought fleet of the United States, consisting of ten ships, is now assembled off Vera Cruz—the Washington Government being still engaged in toying with the Mexican situation by following out its futile policy of 'Watchful waiting.' Equally favorable to our plans is the fact that the bulk of the effective regular force of 30,000 men in the Continental United States is gathered on the Mexican border. The pre-dreadnought fleet of the United States, moreover, is being paraded, just now, in the various ports of the Pacific Coast.

"You, Von Tirpitz, will agree with me that the prolonged inactivity of our fleet in the North Sea and Baltic ports has rendered it desirable that the ships be at once sent to sea for a series of maneuvers on a grand scale, the operations to extend over a series of weeks.

"After a grand review, which I shall hold off Heligoland, the fleet will be dispatched to the Atlantic, ostensibly for these maneuvers, but actually for a descent upon the coasts of the United States.

"From a rendezvous in the western Atlantic, the various divisions of the main fleet will move to the selected points of attack in accordance with the general plans formulated several years ago as the result of our academic study of the problem of an invasion of the United States. The modifications necessary for the present enterprise will be such as are rendered necessary by the present strength of our fleet, the location and strength of the enemy's forces, and by the imperative demand for secrecy, dispatch, and strict coordination as to time and place.

That, gentlemen, is the plan and April 1, 1916, will be Der Tag!"

Chapter 4

IV

EMBARKATION OF THE GERMAN ARMY

Upon the declaration of peace, the German Government announced that the military rule and censorship which had obtained throughout the war would be extended to cover the few weeks which would be required for the demobilization of the German army. It was explained that this course was adopted for the double purpose of facilitating the orderly return of the citizen-soldiers to their homes, and of delaying any publication of the strength of the German army in the field at the close of the war, and of its total losses, until such time as the government thought best to make these facts public.

On the very day, March 1st, of the sign of the Peace of Geneva, and in some cases even while the ink of the signatories was wet upon the paper, the great fleet of German merchant ships which had been interned in foreign ports during the war cast loose its moorings and set sail for the Fatherland. Among the first of these ships to start out from her pier and head for the open sea was the great Hamburg-American liner Vaterland, and as she and the Kaiser Wilhelm II, of the North German Lloyd, followed at intervals by other ships of these two companies, steamed down the North River, and out through the Narrows, New York wished them Godspeed on their homeward voyage with the flying of flags, the dipping of ensigns by the shipping, and the prolonged roar of a thousand steam whistles and sirens.

Meanwhile in Germany all public traffic over the railways was suspended and the huge task of returning some seven millions of men to their homes was begun.

Not all of the troops, however, were thus immediately redistributed to the farms and factories and business houses of Germany. A picked force of 200,000 veterans of the first line was diverted to the leading German seaports on the North Sea and the Baltic, and within a few days after the close of the war 20,000 of these troops, with the necessary artillery and equipment, had been embarked upon certain transports of moderate size and draft, which, as soon as the troops were aboard, pulled out into midstream and awaited further orders. In every case the troops went aboard at night, and during the operation the cordon of secrecy drawn around the various naval bases and ports at which the embarkation took place was tightened.

While the loaded transports were awaiting their orders, the troops remained be deck and only the regular working force of the ship was visible. One by one, and from widely separated harbors, these ships slipped their moorings and put to sea. Some by the way of the English Channel and others following the route around the north coast of Scotland and Ireland, they proceeded at slow speed to their appointed rendezvous in the western Atlantic.

Each ship sailed at sundown, and during the first night out the color and banding of its smokestacks were changed to that of some foreign ship of similar size and contour, the corresponding foreign flag being flown. Those that took the southerly route regulated their speed so as to pass through the straits of Dover at night; those that laid their course around the north of Scotland maintained a good offing, beyond signaling distance of the coast guard and signal stations. As soon as it was well clear of the Channel and the Irish coast, each ship, avoiding the regular sailing routes, laid its course to the westward.

Meanwhile the work of transforming the largest and fastest of the German ocean liners, headed by the Imperator and her recently-completed sister ship, the new Bismarck, into transports was being rushed day and night by the largest working force that could be crowded upon their decks. The commodious, first-class state-rooms were stripped of their furniture and galvanized-pipe folding berths were fitted on each wall. The spacious saloons, restaurants, palm gardens, etc., were similarly denuded of their furnishings and fitted with berths. The wide promenade decks were inclosed by canvas and fitted with berthing accommodation. So vast is the space available on the nine decks and in the holds of these ships, which in peace time can carry 5,000 souls, that when the alterations were completed, it was found that each of the three ships of the Imperator class could carry 10,000 troops with their full equipment.

The work of transforming the liners that had been interned in the United States began on the day they left New York, and they were stripped and ready for the shipyard workmen by the time, seven days later, they reached the home ports. With such efficiency and dispatch was this work carried through that the second expeditionary force of 50,000 men was embarked and had sailed on or before the 28th of March. The transports carrying this force were vessels of from 20 to 23 knots' speed. Some of them sailed boldly on advertised schedules, direct for New York; the rest slipped away by night, adopting the same ruses and secrecy as the transports of the first expedition. They sailed at intervals during the last two weeks of March, and the rate of steaming was so adjusted as to bring the whole expedition to New York, Boston, and Washington between the 1st and 3d of April.

The third army of 130,000 men, in transports of from 14 to 19 knots' speed set sail on April 1st, the faster ships of the George Washington and America type pushing on with all speed, and the slower ships proceeding as a fleet under convoy of the ten battleships of the Wittlesbach and Kaiser Wilhelm II. classes.

And so it came about that, by employing the full force of every naval and private shipyard in the country, Germany, within the month, had embarked upon the seas an army of invasion composed of 200,000 of the picked veteran troops of the war, completely equipped with artillery, transport, and supplies.

And, thanks to the tightening of the censorship and the patriotic silence of the shipyard employees, not a whisper of what was going on escaped to the outside world, until on April 1st the third expeditionary force, convoyed by battleships, steamed boldly out into the North Sea and laid its course by way of the English Channel for the coasts of America.