THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN SENTI MENT TOWARDS GERMANY, 1870-19141 By Clara Eve Schieber, Ph.D., Professor of History, Kingfisher College, Kingfisher, Oklahoma I. INTRODUCTORY This article will attempt to give a concise account of the changes in the attitude of the United States towards Germany from 1870 to the outbreak of the world war. In 1870 the sympathies of the United States were unquestionably with Germany. During the half century which followed our sentiment had gradually changed, so that in 1914 the prevailing attitude in this country was anti-German. The alteration of our attitude came about as the result of a series of diplomatic and commercial incidents and certain definite tendencies in Germanic policy, culture and society which aroused the fears and suspicions of Americans. It will be the purpose of this article to describe briefly the nature of the changes in the American feeling towards Germany, together with the causes for these transformations. II. AMERICAN OPINION WITH RESPECT TO THE FRANCOPRUSSIAN WAR OF 1870-1871 1. The background of American sympathy for Germany in 1870 Much has been made in the last seven years of the "wrong done to France" by Germany in 1870, which President Wilson held must be righted as one of the results of the world On the contrary the American attitude in 1870 was that no wrong had been done to France by either the war or the taking of Alsace-Lorraine. Rather, the American public war. 1 This article is a condensation of a more elaborate study of the same title submitted as a Ph.D. dissertation at Clark University, 1920. agreed with a recent expression of opinion by Clemenceau that the wrongs done in 1870 were those committed by the French. It is interesting to consider why we should have entertained this attitude a half century ago. The Germans in the United States in the thirties and forties had tended to be radicals and supporters of liberal policies in this country. The German element in the Free Soil Party was a large one. The United States sympathized with the aspirations of the German liberals in 1848, and this attitude was notably forwarded by the exiles from that group who took refuge here after the collapse of the liberal movement. Germany, along with Russia, had been the chief European sympathizer with the North in the Civil War The conspicuous fairness of the Prince Consort of England in the early part of the Civil War called attention to his German extraction. German universities were the center of the world's intellectual life at that time, and Americans recognized the German hegemony in scholarship and were beginning that notable academic hegira to Germany which lasted for a generation. Finally, the German aspiration for national unity naturally appealed to a nation which had just passed through a great conflict to achieve a similar aim. On the other hand there were equally obvious reasons why the United States was suspicious and fearful of France in 1870. The duplicity and oppression of the first Napoleon between 1800 and 1815 had not been forgotton, and the ruler of France in 1870 was a Bonaparte. The policy of Napoleon III had been one of autocracy, militarism and imperialism. It had come home to us in the invasion of Mexico in 1861 and the years immediately following. There was a very general feeling that the Franco-Prussian War was a product of his aggressive and domineering action and that his dynasty and supporters were in great need of such salutary discipline as would be furnished by a stinging defeat at the hands of Prussia. We now know that they were wrong in attributing the French responsibility for the war to Napoleon rather than to Gramont and Eugénie.3 2 Saturday Evening Post, March 12, 1921. 3 Gorce, Histoire du Second Empire, vols. vi-vii; Sorel, Histoire diplomatique de la guerre franco-allemande. 2. American sympathy with Germany in 1870-71 George Bancroft, our minister to Germany in 1870, well expressed the current pro-German opinion in a letter written to Secretary of State Hamilton Fish: Our foreign political interests almost always run parallel with those of Germany, and are often in direct conflict with those of France. Bismarck and the King were true to our union during our Civil War-when France took sides against us, Germany respected the independence of Mexico; the French supported the Austrian adventurer. Bismarck loves to give the United States prominence in the eyes of Europe as a balance to Great Britian. If we need the solid, trusty good will of any government in Europe, we can have it best with Germany; because German institutions and ours most nearly resemble each other, and because so many millions of Germans have become our countrymen. This war will leave Germany the most powerful state in Europe, and the most free; its friendship, is, therefore, most important to us; and has its foundations in history and in nature. The more I learn of the present condition of France, the more deeply does the country seem to have been injured by the corrupting, wasteful and immoral government of Louis Napoleon. Our minister to France, Elihu B. Washburne, lays the blame for the Franco-Prussian war squarely upon France and claims that it was brought about to strengthen the dynastic future of the Bonaparte line. Charles Sumner, chairman of the committee on foreign relations of the senate of the United States, made a vigorous speech on "The Duel between France and Germany," in which he vigorously condemned the former: Considering the age, and the present demands of civilization such a war stands forth terrific in wrong, making the soul rise indignant against it. It is a war of pretexts, the real object being the humiliation and dismemberment of Germany, in the vain hope of exalting the French Empire and perpetrating a bauble crown on the head of a boy. By a military success and a peace dictated at Berlin, the Emperor trusted to find himself in such condition, that, on return to Paris, he could overthrow parliamentary government so far as it existed there, and reestablish personal government, where all depended on himself—thus making triumph over Germany the means of another triumph over the French people." Howe, Life and Letters of George Bancroft, pp. 246-7. • The Duel between France and Germany, pp. 266-7. The newspapers of the country were overwhelmingly in favor of Germany. Only the New York World and the Boston Post were consistently pro-French. Perhaps the most notably pro-German periodical in the country was Harper's Weekly. The New York Times stated that The attempt of France to entice Prussia into war is a crime which has no counterpart since the partition of Poland. France seems doomed to defeat and she will have to thank the Emperor for the humiliation." The Boston Herald held that Napoleon was chagrined by the advance of Prussia to the head of European powers. He knew his dynasty was weak and hoped by a victory over Prussia to place himself more firmly in his seat. He seized the first pretext-a flimsy affair-and went in. The New York Tribune contended that Napoleon threatens hostilities on perfectly insufficient grounds Neither abstract justice, nor present expediency, nor the historic policy of his own realm, justifies him in the course he now pursues.9 The Springfield Republican raised the query What is the war all about? The sad answer must be the old one: the ambitions of kings, the lust of conquest and the folly of the people. The moral enormity of precipitating war at the present time is unspeakable, and the guilt of it will rest wholly with Louis Napoleon.10 The Chicago Daily Tribune maintained that France wars at a mere pretence. Napoleon wanted war. The united sense of mankind is that the ruler who precipitates war without a cause is the greatest of criminals and wholly unfit to preside over the destinies of any nation." The Independent was particularly bitter in its indictment of Louis Napoleon: If there is one man in Europe who has outlived his day, who belongs not to the present but to the past, who is a charlatan 7 July 28, 1870. • November 3, 1870. July 12, 1870. 10 July 12, 1870. 11 July 20, 1870. instead of a statesman, a usurper instead of a rightful prince, that man is Louis Napoleon. Every drop of blood now flowing in Europe adds a new stain to his name. He is responsible, and he alone, for this upheaval of the volcano of war. It was he, and he only, who made a causeless attack upon a great nation that would not draw a sword except in self-defence. God pity the French people, but overthrow the French Emperor.12 When will Heaven rid the earth of the last vestige of the Bonapartes? If France suffers him, or any of his name, to remain on her soil after this last crowning crime, she will deserve no pity for all she has suffered or all that she may yet suffer at his hands. She will show herself fit only to be the slave of such a master.13 The New York World, on the contrary, insisted that The government of Prussia has become the most autocratic in Europe. . The objection of the French Emperor to a Prussian prince on the throne of Spain is perfectly valid. France would need a large standing army if a Hohenzollern were on the throne of Spain. France would be between two Hohenzollerns.14 Likewise the Boston Post charged that The war is of Bismarck's making. Liberalism and despotism. the path of progress. It is a war between Napoleon has kept France in Prussia is a military govern ment in the strictest sense. The king lays his iron hand on his people in their very cradles, and keeps it there with a tight grip till they go to their graves. The Prussian soldier fights for his king, not for his country.15 The newspapers of the country were exultant over the crushing defeat of the French. They hailed it as a salutary lesson to any state which would ruthlessly and needlessly break the peace of Europe. They criticized the aggressiveness and militarism that lay beneath it all. Yet sympathy was expressed for the French people, while German unity and the promise of French republicanism were extolled. There was practically no criticism of the indemnity of five billion francs and but little critical comment on the taking of Alsace-Lorraine. Most papers regarded them as the legitimate spoils of war and some influential papers 12 August 18, 1870. 13 September 8, 1870. |