ULTIMATUM-VON

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HE United States entered upon the war by formal act of Congress April 6, 1917. Some of the reasons for the act then cited by the President for abandoning neutrality were as applicable, if not quite as evident, in August, 1914, after the German purposes and methods had become evident. There were indeed some people, influential in standing though few in numbers, who urged the entrance of this nation upon the war immediately upon the invasion of Belgium. Their numbers steadily increased as the horror of the Belgian atrocities grew among our people, and after the murderous crime of the Lusitania they were multiplied a thousandfold. When the President, after painfully guarding neutrality almost three years, finally sounded the call to arms, giving as the summary of his reasons that "the world must be made safe for democracy," the early advocates of war had their revenge. mocracy was never more menaced, they said, than in 1914 when Germany declared war on democratic France and violated a treaty to which it was a party in order to deal its victim a foul blow below the belt.

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It would be idle, however, to contend that from the outset the sentiment of the American people was for war. Precisely the contrary was the case. Only a prolonged series of offenses on the part of Germany, so de liberately and wantonly provocative as almost to make it appear they were designed to invite war, finally reconciled the American people to entrance upon the struggle. The

story of this campaign of provocation will be told in this chapter.

We have seen that at the very opening of the war the German merchant feet scurried for places of refuge from the overwhelming power of the British Navy. Within a very few weeks Germany was dependent wholly upon neutral vessels for supplies her people might need drawn from foreign countries. The first study of the Allies was naturally to cut down to the lowest limit by the recognized weapon of the blockade the quantity of these supplies that could reach their enemy. German harbors were few and under conditions which had obtained, in earlier wars would have been easily blockaded by the normal methods of blockade, established and recognized by international law. But a new weapon had appeared in this war which made the ancient rule of blockade impossible if the blockade were to be kept effective. The submarine, with its power of slipping up stealthily and unseen and delivering a deadly stroke, compelled the abandonment of the old custom by which blockaders lay off the mouth of a harbor blocking all passage. Such a watch could not have been maintained off Hamburg or Bremen for a week without heavy loss to the blockaders. Accordingly the British government declared a blockade which included waters hundreds of miles distant from the ports it was sought to close, and posted its blockading vessels along the lanes of commerce which vessels seeking those ports would necessarily follow, yet far enough from German waters to incur but slight danger from the submarines. This was procedure of but doubtful validity under international law as it was then codified and accepted-but before the war had proceeded very far international law had been as badly shot to pieces as the Cathedral at Rheims.

There followed the wide extension of the list of contraband of war by Great Britainthat is to say a great increase in the number

and variety of articles of commerce which were refused passage to Germany on the ground that they were really military supplies. Food, for example, had never been held contraband of war. But now Germany gave a plausible excuse, which England instantly seized, for so declaring it. In January, 1916, the German government declared its purpose of seizing all stocks of corn, wheat and flour in the Empire, and forbade any private transactions in foodstuffs thereafter. This the British held to constitute a government control of foodstuffs for the primary benefit of the army, thus making them contraband. The United States protested strenuously, a test case having been made by the seizure of the United States ship Wilhelmina. The diplomatic debate dragged along interminably and inconclusively until forgotten in the more serious issues that sprung from the German methods of reprisals.

For the German government was maddened, and not without some justice, at the British amendments of the law of blockade. The practice of the blockade on the high seas, and the enormous extension of the contraband list were bitterly denounced. Germany, destitute of ships of her own, was forced to look on in helpless rage while fleets of Allied and neutral ships crossed and recrossed the Atlantic, bringing to the Allied nations cannon, rifles, high explosives, shells, artillery horses and mules, cloth for uniforms, boots for soldiers, all possible munitions of war and foodstuffs. Nothing could go to Germany except by evasion of the rigorous British watch.

To check this commerce the Germans had but one weapon the submarine. But its successful employment meant the complete repudiation of at least one

hits its mark. This is the machine of destruction which the The telltale trail of a torpedo, marking a deadly aim when it

Germans are using in their ruthless submarine warfare

vital principle of international law. The first step of the Kaiser's government was to proclaim all the waters around the British Isles a "war zone in which she purposed to destroy all enemy vessels "without its always being possible to warn the crew or passengers of the danger threatening. Neutral ves

sels were warned to keep out of the zone lest in the fever of the campaign against belligerents they might fall victims to German zeal. With this proclamation began the prolonged controversy between Germany and the United States which finally dragged the latter most unwillingly into the war. Our government instantly made the protest that neutral ships must not be endangered by the creation arbitrarily of "war zones," and that even belligerent ships, and particularly Americans

ho happened to be on them either as pasengers or members of the crews, were entled to the protection of international law. That law has always distinctly provided that suspected vessel shall not be destroyed ntil she has been visited, and her belligerent haracter or the contraband quality of her argo established by due examination. Even hen she may not be sunk until her passengers and crew have been placed in safety. Gernany at one stroke of the pen obliterated hese humane provisions which had been established in a century or more of international agreement.

The immediate result of the war zone proclamation was the sinking of the Italian liner Falaba, with the loss of one American, and an attack on the American ship Gulflight, by which her captain lost his life. Diplomatic protests followed each of these events, but the supreme issue was raised when the Cunard liner Lusitania was torpedoed without immediate warning and with the loss of 1,198 lives of whom 114 were Americans. The patience of our people was strained to the breaking point. The German legation in Washington had arrogantly warned the travelling public by newspaper advertisement that those who sought to cross the war zone would do so at their own peril. After the crime had been committed the German Foreign Office pointed to this warning as a complete release from responsibility-much as though a gang of white caps should assure their victim that they had warned him in advance of what they intended to do.

President Wilson's protest against this murderous act, dated May 13, 1915, was a dignified restatement of the rights of neutrals on the high seas and a suitably vigorous denunciation of the German act, which he diplomatically ascribed to a misapprehension of orders by the captain of the submarine. It may be noted in passing that that individual was decorated and promoted for his heroic act. The President's note concluded:

"The Imperial German Government will not expect the government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment.

There followed a period of diplomatic correspondence, Germany evidently fighting for delay in the expectation that American.

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resentment would die out. But it did not. It grew with every evasive German response, and every new toleration of delay on the of our State Department evoked storms of criticism. Germany seemed to be riding for a fall. On the 19th of August, while the Lusitania discussion was at its height, the White Star liner Arabic was torpedoed without warning. No lives were lost but twentysix Americans were exposed to the hardships of seeking safety in open boats. A swift protest was met by Germany with the halfway concession of giving orders that "liners will not be sunk by submarines without warning, and without ensuring the safety of the lives of noncombatants, provided that

ity for the Germans to adhere to, and in less than three weeks the Allan liner Hesperian was torpedoed without warning. Among her crew were two Americans, though neither lost his life.

The people of this nation were getting very weary of the German policy of promising reform while continuing its offensive course. And about this time there began to appear a series of revelations concerning plots against our good order and interests by German agents not unconnected with the diplomatic service that added to the popular discontent. It was discovered that incendiary fires in ammunition plants, and strikes in works of the same character were being fomented by German agents. Our State Department was being deceived with forged passportsa work in which attachés of the German embassy, Captain Boy-Ed and Captain von von Papen, took an active part. The existence of a subsidized German propaganda was demonstrated. Papers emanating from Dr. Dumba, the Austrian Ambassador, fell into the hands of the State Department, showing that functionary to be busily

the liners do not try to escape or to offer resistance." This was of course unsatisfactory. It offered no protection to American sailors on freight vessels. It presumed that exposing passengers to the perils of the sea in small open boats was equivalent to securing their safety. Accordingly it was never accepted by Secretary Robert Lansing, who had succeeded Mr. William J. Bryan as Secretary of State. But unsatisfactory as it was it was still too great a measure of human

engaged in encouraging strikes in such great steel works as those at Bethlehem. As a result he was summarily sent home. An intercepted letter from Captain von Papen disclosed that warrior of intrigue as advising "these idiotic Yankees to hold their tongues." It was daily made more clear that the embassy which Germany maintained here in a nominal spirit of friendliness was in fact a nest of conspiracy against our industries and our internal peace, and that the spirit which animated its officials from Ambassador von Bernstorff down was one of cynical contempt for the United States and resentment for the part she was