were given a holiday. President Wilson was criticised sharply during the later years of his administration because diplomatic relations with Germany were not severed immediately following the destruction of the Lusitania. In his defense it was urged that public sentiment in America had not ripened sufficiently for a declaration of war. Neither had there been sufficient preparation by America for the entrance of the nation into hostilities.

The sinking of the Lusitania was followed shortly by the resignation of Secretary of State Bryan who differed with the President upon questions of state policy. Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison, of New Jersey, resigned his post. He was a strong advocate of the policy of preparedness for America.

The destruction of the Lusitania was the ferment which transformed the United States from a country of pacifism into a nation resolved upon the extermination of Germany's autocratic militarism. It was a ferment that permeated all classes. American labor and American capital contemplating the Lusitania grew daily to hate more and more the ruthless policy that dictated the frightful deed.

G

CHAPTER III

AMERICA STRIKES

ERMANY with her back to the wall, her submarines

held within narrow limits, resolved upon a campaign of ruthless submarine warfare. The far-visioned among German statesmen realized that this decision would bring the United States into the war, but Von Tirpitz, head of the German Admiralty and the group associated with him believed that the United States could not be made ready for effective participation in the war before England could be blockaded and subdued.

Ruthless submarine warfare commenced on February 1, 1917. Approximately one hundred U-boats were sent from German and Belgian ports to spread terror and destruction throughout the seas. The British countered with a campaign of intensified destructiveness. From British Admiralty sources came the information that no fewer than forty-eight of these one hundred U-boats had been captured or destroyed by February 25th.

President Wilson on February 3d informed Congress of the change in Germany's submarine policy and on the same day dismissed Count Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador whose office was the center of German propaganda and destructiveness in the United States. President Wilson on February 26th addressed a joint session of Congress in person. He asked for authority to supply armed crews and ammunition to American merchant vessels and "To employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate pursuits on the seas.'

News was received of the destruction, by a submarine, of the Cunard liner Laconia with loss of American lives and property, on the next day. This was followed on March 12th by the sinking with shellfire and bombs of the American ship

Algonquin, bound from New York to London with food. The attack was made without warning at 6 o'clock in the morning. A crew of twenty-six men, fourteen of whom were Americans, were in open boats for twenty-seven hours, before they reached Scilly. Germany gloried in the result of its ruthless policy. On March 19th, the following official announcement was issued from Berlin:

In February 368 merchant ships of an aggregate gross tonnage of 781,500 were lost by the war measures of the Central Powers. Among them were 292 hostile ships, with an aggregate gross tonnage of 644,000 and seventy-six neutral ships of an aggregate gross tonnage of 137,500. Among the neutral ships sixty-one were sunk by submarines, which is 16.5 per cent of the total in February, as compared with 29 per cent, the average of neutral losses in the last four months.

Coupled with the nation-wide indignation created by the sinking of American shipping without warning on the high seas, was the anger caused by the publication on March 1, 1917, of a letter dated January 19, 1917, signed by the German Foreign Secretary Zimmermann, and addressed to the German Minister Von Eckhardt in Mexico City. It revealed an antiAmerican alliance proposed by Germany with Mexico and Japan in the event that war was declared. The letter follows: Berlin, Jan. 19, 1917.

On February 1st we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of this it is our intention to endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America.

If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement.

You are instructed to inform the President of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan. At the same time, offer to mediate between Germany and Japan.

Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few months.

ZIMMERMANN.

The purpose of the people of the United States was now set definitely for war with Germany. It was a current as impetuous as the rapids of Niagara. Nothing could halt it. Everything that stood in the way was swept aside. Meetings of pacifists, conferences looking toward further negotiations with Germany were impatiently swept aside. On March

6th Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels called the leading shipbuilders of the United States together and placed before them the proposition of the United States Government for immediate increase in the navy. As a result of that conference, Secretary Daniels on March 15th placed the largest single order that was ever given for fighting seacraft. Four huge battle cruisers and six scout cruisers costing $112,000,000 for hull and machinery alone were planned.

A three-year navy building program was outlined for seven battleships, five battle cruisers, seven scout cruisers, and a host of destroyers, submarines, dirigible airships and other craft.

The record of Germany's offenses against the United States was set forth formally by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives. It was a long one and included a series of intrigues against the peace of the United States, engineered by Germany's official representatives and spies in this country; fraudulent passports; supplying German warships with coal and provisions; the attempt to blow up the International Bridge at Vanceboro, Me.; placing bombs on ships; attempts to bring about strikes; conspiracy to send agents into Canada to blow up railroad tunnels and bridges; an elaborate system of espionage carried on by Paul Koenig, head of the secret-service work of the HamburgAmerican Line; organizing an expedition to destroy the Welland Canal; attempts to organize an expedition to go to India to bring about a revolution there; financing a number of newspapers for the purposes of German propaganda; and encouraging and aiding activities of one or other faction in Mexico, the purpose being to keep the United States occupied along its own borders and prevent the exportation of munitions of war. Involved in these plottings were the official representatives of the Imperial German Government

in this country, Count Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador; Captain Von Papen, Military Attaché of the embassy; Captain Boy-Ed, Naval Attaché; Dr. Dumba, the AustroHungarian Ambassador; Dr. Heinrich Albert, Wolf von Igel, Franz von Rintelen and many others.

All these plottings occurred while Germany was professing friendship with the United States; and, taken in conjunction with the destruction of Americans on the high seas, they vanquished the feeling of neutrality which this country had endeavored to maintain, and made war inevitable. It only now remained for the President to call the nation to arms. This he did in a memorable address delivered on the night of April 2, 1917. The President realized his heavy responsibility and his face was pale and his voice low and repressed as he commenced to read his address to the joint session of Congress and the most notable gathering of Americans and allies this country had ever seen. At first he leaned against the marble rostrum, but as the recital of the indignities suffered at the hands of Germany proceeded the words came vibrant with feeling. At the conclusion of the reading a demonstration unparalleled in its emotional sweep arose. It was the release of America's determination to join the Entente Allies for the extinction of a military autocracy that was threatening the future of the world's civilization. Among other things, the President said:

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Goverment to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts— for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations,