Castles of Steel (137 page)

Count Johann von Bernstorff, the ambassador of Imperial Germany, could not afford to wait. Elegant, aristocratic, with blue eyes and a red mustache, he was charming, candid, and adaptable, the most popular ambassador in Washington before the war. He had been born in London, where his diplomat father had been stationed, and he had served eight years in the Prussian Guards before joining the Foreign Ministry. He married an American and now had served eight years as ambassador to the United States. He spoke impeccable English and French; he waltzed, played tennis, golf, and poker, and pretended to be interested in baseball. Socially, all doors opened to him and he instructed the doormen at the German embassy on Massachusetts Avenue to show into his office any newspaperman who cared to call. Five American universities had given him an honorary degree; these included Columbia, the University of Chicago, and Woodrow Wilson’s own Princeton.

Knowing America, Bernstorff understood the consequences of unleashing German submarines against American shipping. Month after month, behind his amiable façade, he struggled to keep his country off this ruinous path. Along with Bethmann-Hollweg and Jagow, he hoped that President Wilson would intervene and stop the war. Through the summer and early fall of 1916, he pleaded with the chancellor to postpone the U-boat decision until after the American election. “If Wilson wins at the polls, for which the prospect is at present favorable,” Bernstorff told Bethmann-Hollweg on September 6, “the president will at once take steps towards mediation. He thinks in that case to be strong enough to compel a peace conference. Wilson regards it as in the interest of America that neither of the combatants should gain a decisive victory.” Bethmann-Hollweg and Jagow waited eagerly for word from their ambassador. On September 26, the chancellor cabled Bernstorff: “The whole situation would change if President Wilson were to make an offer of mediation to the powers.” Wilson remained silent. On October 14, increasingly anxious, Bethmann-Hollweg cabled the ambassador, “Demand for unrestricted submarine campaign increasing here. Spontaneous appeal for peace, towards which I again ask you to encourage him, would be gladly accepted by us. You should point out Wilson’s power, and consequently his duty, to put a stop to slaughter. If he cannot make up his mind to act alone, he should get into communication with Pope, King of Spain and European neutrals.” On November 16, after Wilson’s election, Jagow pushed Bernstorff: “Desirable to know whether president willing to take steps towards mediation and if so which and when.” On November 20, Jagow cabled again: “We are thoroughly in sympathy with the peace tendencies of President Wilson. His activity in this direction is to be strongly encouraged.” Bernstorff replied, “Urge no change in submarine war until decided whether Wilson will open mediation. Consider this imminent.” Still, Wilson did not act.

The German generals, however, wanted to hear no more from Bernstorff of the long-awaited mediation offer. It was clear that no peace Wilson could arrange would be acceptable to the Supreme Command. “The German people wish no peace of renunciation,” stormed Ludendorff, “and I do not intend to end being pelted by stones.” The U-boats must be unleashed, and those opposed to this decision removed from office. If, for the moment, Bethmann-Hollweg remained untouchable, at least the generals could rid themselves of another enemy, Foreign Minister von Jagow. On November 22, Jagow, who had never wanted the job and was almost incapacitated by its burdens, resigned and his vigorous undersecretary, Arthur Zimmermann, was appointed foreign minister. That day, the American chargé d’affaires, calling on the chancellor, found him “a man broken in spirit, his face deeply furrowed, his manner sad beyond words.”

Affecting the internal struggles of the German government, pressing down on the chancellor and the generals alike, was the grim weight of the British blockade. The extinction of German overseas trade had not directly affected the German army, which continued to be adequately supplied with food and ammunition, but the army’s well-being came at a cost to the civilian population. The third winter of the war was known in Germany as the turnip winter because turnips in many guises found their way into the people’s basic diet. Most recognizable foods were scarce. Milk was available to people over six years old only with a doctor’s prescription. Bread was made first from potatoes, then from turnips. Eggs, which had been limited in September to two per person per week, were doled out in December at one egg every two weeks. Pork, a staple of the traditional German diet, disappeared; in August 1914, Berlin stockyards were slaughtering 25,000 pigs every week; by September 1916, the figure was 350. Sugar and butter could be purchased only in minute quantities. The 1916 potato harvest had failed, and potato ration cards were required in hotels and restaurants. Even in June that year, three Americans had walked down Unter den Linden where every window and balcony was festooned with red, white, and black flags celebrating the “victory” at Jutland and the prospect that the blockade would soon be broken. Entering the Zollernhof restaurant, they picked up the bill of fare and for the first time read, “Boiled Crow.”

By winter, the grip of the blockade had tightened. “We are all gaunt and bony now,” wrote the English-born Princess Blücher. “We have dark shadows around our eyes and our thoughts are chiefly taken up with wondering what our next meal will be.” Coal was scarce; in Berlin only every other street light was lit. In Munich, all public halls, theaters, art galleries, museums, and cinema houses were closed for lack of heat. Women waiting in long lines to buy food were exposed to winter rain, snow, and slush. The women returned to unheated houses, where their children, having no warm clothes, had been kept in bed all day.

These privations aroused the German people to hatred. They were bitter at their own government, which had promised a short war, brilliant victories, and a greater Germany. Their rage was far greater at their enemies, primarily Britain, which had imposed the blockade. And every day they read in their newspapers that the nation possessed a weapon that could break the blockade. Week by week, throughout Germany, the clamor rose higher: Unleash the submarines! The U-boat now became a symbol not only of revenge and victory, but also of the end of the war and peace.

Bethmann-Hollweg, who had reluctantly approved of Jagow’s dismissal as a means of buying time, realized that he could no longer wait for Wilson. On December 9, when the American election had been over for a month and still nothing was heard from Washington, the chancellor resolved on a dramatic step: Germany herself would propose negotiations to end the war. It was a favorable moment; the German military position had temporarily improved. The British offensive on the Somme had been drowned in blood, the Russian Brusilov campaign had been checked, and Rumania had been crushed. The kaiser, seeing a new way to seize the limelight, supported the chancellor. “To propose to make peace is a moral act,” William wrote. “Such an act needs a monarch whose conscience is awake and who feels himself responsible to God, who acknowledges his duty to all men—even his enemies; a monarch who feels no fear because his intentions may be misinterpreted, who has in him the will to deliver the world from its agony. I have the courage to do this and I will risk it for God’s sake.”

Grudgingly, the generals and admirals agreed to delay an unrestricted submarine campaign until one last demonstration could be made to the German public and to world opinion that Germany had no other choice. Their quid pro quo was that if Bethmann-Hollweg’s attempt to bring about a peace conference should fail—as they fully expected—the U-boats would be unleashed. The new foreign minister, Zimmermann, had put it in a way the military men could accept. “Intensified submarine war toward America would certainly be facilitated,” Zimmermann said, “if we could refer to such a peace action.” Zimmermann also saw another advantage: the move would drive away an obnoxious interloper. To an off-the-record press conference, he explained that, as Germany “was threatened by a peace move by Mr. Wilson, we would fix it so this person would not have his finger in the pie.” The German peace note, circulated on December 12 and announcing that the Central Powers invited the nations at war to begin negotiations for a peaceful settlement, came as a surprise to everyone. “In a deep moral and religious sense of duty towards this nation and beyond it towards humanity, the emperor now considers that the moment has come for official action towards peace,” Bethmann-Hollweg explained to the Reichstag. William’s announcement to the army was delivered in sterner language: “Soldiers! In agreement with the sovereigns of my allies and with consciousness of victory, I have made an offer of peace to the enemy. Whether it will be accepted is uncertain. Until that moment arrives, you will fight on.”

By December 1916, the Asquith coalition government in Britain was coming apart, the central issue being the effectiveness of the prime minister himself. Asquith had always governed as a relaxed chairman of the board, hearing all arguments, then postponing decisions until consensus emerged.

[In Cabinet meetings, “it was not unknown for the Prime Minister to be writing letters while the discussion proceeded,” said Austen Chamberlain, the secretary of state for India. “The result was that complete confusion prevailed and when at last he intervened with a statement that, ‘Now that is decided, we had better pass on to . . .’ there would be a general cry of ‘But what is decided?’ and the discussion would begin all over again.”]

Now, after eight years in office, he was tired and, to make matters worse, his focus was blurred by the recent death in action of his eldest son. David Lloyd George, a Liberal colleague who had served under Asquith for many years, saw his chance. Asquith’s leadership had become “visibly flabbier, tardier, and more flaccid,” the ambitious Welshman declared; what was needed was a new War Committee of three, chaired by himself and excluding the prime minister, who would be allowed to keep that office with diminished authority. When Asquith refused this political emasculation, his government collapsed. Lloyd George resigned; then Asquith resigned, and on December 10, a new, Lloyd George government took office with Grey out as foreign secretary and Balfour shifted from the Admiralty to the Foreign Office. Two days later, the German peace note arrived. The Allies saw clearly that the peace being offered was a conqueror’s peace. Europe from the English Channel to the Black Sea was in the grip of the Central Powers; the German army occupied Belgium, Poland, Serbia, Rumania, and ten of the richest provinces of France. Now, the note suggested, the rulers of Germany would be willing to call off the war if they could keep everything they had occupied. On December 30, Lloyd George told the House of Commons that “to enter into a conference on the invitation of Germany, proclaiming herself victorious, is to put our heads in a noose.” Both Britain and France rejected the German note.

The Allies’ emphatic rejection of Bethmann-Hollweg’s peace offer fur-ther weakened the chancellor in Berlin. Admiral von Holtzendorff said, “Since I do not believe in a quick effect of the beautiful peace gesture, I am totally committed to the use of our crucial weapon—unrestricted submarine warfare.” Hindenburg insisted that “diplomatic and military preparations for an unrestricted U-boat campaign begin so that it may for certain begin at end of January.” But now came another complication—and a last opportunity for the chancellor. On December 18, the president of the United States finally issued his own peace note to the warring powers. Presenting himself as “the friend of all nations,” Wilson asked each of the belligerents to declare its war aims so that a search for middle ground could begin. “It may be,” he declared, “that peace is nearer than we know. . . . The objects which the statesmen of the belligerents on both sides have in mind in this war are virtually the same, as stated to their own peoples and to the world.” Privately, House told Bernstorff that Wilson would not hesitate to use heavy economic pressure to coerce the Allies if he thought their conditions unreasonable.

Wilson’s note was received unwillingly by all to whom it was addressed. The German reply arrived first, on December 26. It was a polite rebuff, declaring that Germany was willing to meet its enemies, but preferred to negotiate with them directly on neutral ground, without the assistance of the United States. Bernstorff pointed out to Berlin that Wilson wished only to be informed of the war aims of both sides so that the belligerents could identify their differences. He was ignored. Specifics were precisely what the German government did not wish to reveal, because such revelations would arouse in Germany a bitter struggle over what German war aims actually were. Nor did the German government wish Wilson to be present at the conference because, as Zimmermann told Bernstorff, “we do not want to run the risk of being robbed of our gains by neutral pressure.” The kaiser’s reaction was blunt: “I go to no conference. Certainly not one presided over by him.”

The Allied reply came two weeks later. Despite their exhaustion, the Allies believed they were winning the war and regarded Wilson’s mediation offer as an effort, witting or unwitting, to rescue their enemies from the consequences of defeat. They wanted no compromises that would leave Germany in a position to renew the struggle later. Lloyd George actively resented Wilson’s effort to “butt in,” as he put it. At the end of September, before becoming prime minister, he had made clear his disdain for any American mediation efforts. “There had been no such intervention when we were being hammered though the first two years, as yet untrained and ill-equipped,” he told an American newspaperman. “Now the whole world—including humanitarians with the best of motives—must know that there can be no outside interference at this stage. Britain will tolerate no interference until Prussian military despotism is broken beyond repair.” Wilson’s phrase, equating the war aims of the opposing sides as “virtually the same” and thus seeming to exonerate Germany and ignore or cheapen the sacrifices of the Allies, appeared less neutral than mischievous. The American ambassador, Walter Page, reported that King George V had wept when the subject came up at lunch. On January 12, 1917, the governments of Britain and France firmly rejected peace talks. The sole cause of war, they declared, was the brutal, unprovoked aggression of Germany and Austria-Hungary. German misdeeds were set forth at length and specific Allied war aims were listed, including evacuation of all occupied territories and enormous reparations and indemnities. Until this was achieved and Germany so reduced that fear of another war did not hang over them, they would continue to fight. France, especially, felt that never again would she be supported by as strong a combination of powers and have as good a chance of beating Germany to her knees. In Washington, however, the negative Allied response produced exactly the reaction Spring-Rice had feared: a resentful president who decided that the two sides, equally intractable, were equally guilty. His peace initiative momentarily thwarted, Wilson decided that the other pillar of his foreign policy, American neutrality, must be buttressed. “There will be no war,” he told House. “This country does not intend to become entangled in this war. It would be a crime against civilization if we entered it.”