CHAPTER VII

THE WORLD WAR

We shall not undertake a long discussion of the causes of the World War but simply examine the reasons for the participation in it of the United States on the side of the Allies. For the first time in history the generation living through a great war has been able to ascertain the facts regarding its origin. These facts, however, have not yet become the common property of the great masses, although they are gradually becoming evident to everybody. A great many people are still influenced by the passions and hatreds aroused by the conflict.

Briefly stated, the causes of the conflict were trade rivalry between Great Britain and Germany, the scramble for territory especially in Africa, the conflict between Russia and Germany for the domination of the Balkan Peninsula, and the old inherited animosity between France and Germany. The accusation of "sole" guilt against Germany is held no longer by persons who have studied the facts, although there still are and will no doubt always be differences of opinion about minor points. The immediate occasion for the opening of hostilities in 1914 was the murder of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. This murder took place while he was in Bosnia. The crime was committed by representatives of a Pan-Slavic organization working hand in hand with the Serbian government with a view to annexing Bosnia to Serbia.

Up to the nineteenth century, the Balkan Peninsula was owned by Turkey, but the last century has witnessed the gradual break-up of European Turkey on the Balkan Peninsula. In connection with this disintegration, Russia tried to gain territory at the expense of Turkey. Austria-Hungary also tried to penetrate the same area. A conflict was the inevitable consequence. This Balkan problem had been a source of trouble in Europe for a century. The people of Serbia were Slavs and looked to Russia for support,--in fact, Serbia was practically governed by Russian diplomacy. Austria-Hungary looked to Germany for support. In 1908, Bosnia, which was then a Turkish province but had been administered by Austria-Hungary since 1878, was annexed by Austria-Hungary. This act offended Serbia, who wished to annex it as part of the Pan-Slavic dream for the domination by Russia of Bosnia, Serbia, and the remainder of the Balkans. This annexation by Austria-Hungary defeated the Pan-Slavic dream and was a victory for Pan-Germany. Feeling became more and more acute when in 1914 the Archduke Ferdinand was killed. The incident was applauded by Serbia, and conflict followed. The details of events in 1914 are too complicated to go into for our brief space, but popular accounts reaching the United States were from Allied sources and were correspondingly biased.

In 1914 all Europe was divided into two great military camps--the Allied and the Central Powers. The following is the size of the principal armies of Europe in 1914: Germany, 806,000; Austria, 370,000; Italy, 305,000; France, 818,000; Russia, 1,284,000; Belgium, 280,000. All Europe was equipped as a military machine, and the murder in 1914 simply put the machinery in motion. It was an absurd fallacy to think that Germany was the only armed nation at the time, and to believe that Great Britain entered the conflict to defend Belgium is equally absurd. As early as 1911, Great Britain had made plans with France for marching an army through Belgium to Germany in the event of war with Germany. Belgium was regarded as part of the Allied powers. Great Britain has officially acknowledged to be false her ostensible reason for entering the war--the protection of Belgium. Her reason was the struggle between rival imperialisms, which secret treaties later exposed show clearly.

However, we are concerned here only with why the United States entered the war. The three outstanding causes were interference with neutral trade, economic ties with the Allies, and Allied propaganda in the United States. These causes overlap in such a way as to make it impossible to discuss them separately.

Soon after war was declared in 1914, Great Britain placed mines in the North Sea and with the aid of her navy blockaded Germany and the adjacent neutral portions of North Europe. As a result, all goods going in that direction were captured. The United States protested, but Great Britain refused to yield the point, claiming it to be a military necessity albeit illegal from the point of view of international law. Great Britain blockaded Germany by mines, and cut off all foreign trade with Germany and neutral ports near Germany to prevent the entrance of goods into Germany. Germany retaliated in February, 1915, by employing the submarine to blockade Great Britain. One policy was as legal as the other. Mr. Wilson protested, but neither side yielded. In no case in history has a nation at war observed the established rules if the rules conflict with military expediency. The United States has been no exception to this procedure. Since the object of warfare is the physical destruction of an opponent, once you justify the war you must justify any means employed to gain the victory. In protesting to Germany, we argued that the submarines could not warn ships to take off passengers before they were sunk, but neither could the mines planted by Great Britain. American ships kept out of the mine zones but disregarded the submarine zones for reasons we shall later explain. The _Lusitania_, a British ship, was sunk by a submarine on May 7, 1915. One hundred and fourteen Americans lost their lives. We immediately protested. But the facts have shown that the _Lusitania_ carried a large quantity of munitions of war. At the time the boat was sunk a United States senator asked the Treasury Department for the bill of lading. He was told it had been turned over to the State Department. When the senator asked the State Department for a copy of the bill of lading in order to see what was on board, the State Department refused to disclose the contents, on the grounds that it was to be kept for diplomatic correspondence. It was not known till after the war was over what had actually been on board the ship. Since then it has been officially stated by the collector of customs then at New York that the _Lusitania_ carried munitions of war. Besides, Germany had warned the passengers before getting on board that in all probability the ship would be sunk. This notice was officially published in the New York papers before the ship sailed. There is no question but that the passengers had been given due warning. Whether the sinking was legal or not depends upon the point of view. According to Germany, she did more than the law required by her warning before the ship left harbor, which is rather better than being warned a few minutes before being sunk in mid-ocean.

The British seized and searched the mails. United States officials below the rank of minister were searched by the British while traveling to and from the continent. Before the close of 1914, thirty-one cargoes of copper valued at $5,500,000 had been captured by Great Britain, but the United States owners were compensated. Their seizure, however, was illegal. Early in 1916, Germany agreed to give up the use of the submarine, but on condition that the United States make Great Britain obey international law. We could not force Great Britain to abide by international law, and consequently Germany resumed her submarine warfare in 1917, which was our official reason for entering the war. But this was only our legal excuse. The effective causes were our economic ties with the Allies, and Allied propaganda in the United States. We will examine these causes more carefully.

Modern warfare is a conflict of economic resources as well as armies. The British navy cut off all economic intercourse between Germany and the United States. In this way, the economic resources of the United States were in the hands of the Allies. American agriculture, credit, and industry soon became indispensable to the Allied cause. In 1915 an Anglo-French mission came to New York and secured a loan of $500,000,000. This money was left with various banks in New York for the purpose of buying supplies from America. The Allied governments continued to borrow in Wall Street, and these banks loaned England and France money with which to buy materials. Soon the House of Morgan became the purchasing agent of the Allies. The Morgan firm selected Edward R. Stetinius, President of the Diamond Match Company, as the purchasing agent. Mr. Stetinius selected one hundred and seventy-five men to assist him in the task. They were soon purchasing supplies for the Allies at the rate of $10,000,000 a day. By September, 1917, the Morgan firm had purchased $3,000,000,000 in merchandise and munitions for the Allies in addition to the selling of Allied bonds. The day the United States declared war against Germany the British government's bank account with Morgan was heavily overdrawn.

When Kitchener became Minister of War in Great Britain in 1915 one of his first acts was to cable Charles M. Schwab of the Bethlehem Steel Company to come to England immediately. Schwab went and agreed to sell all the output of the Bethlehem Steel Company to the British government. In less than two years, he shipped about $300,000,000 worth of war material to England. Twenty submarines were built and sent in parts to Canada where they were assembled and sent across to England. This was done a year before the German submarine _Deutschland_ came to the United States and was advertised as the first to cross the Atlantic. (See John Moody, "Masters of Capital," pages 162-172.)

American industry had become one with the Allies. Our greatest banking and industrial institutions had become dependent upon an Allied victory and an Allied victory was dependent upon them. American industry became pro-Ally because the British blockade cut off our trade with Germany. German and Austrian agents such as Dumba, Karl Boy-Ed and Franz von Papen were expelled from the country because of their un-neutral activities on behalf of the Central Powers.

"Patriotic" societies such as "The Navy League," "The American Defense Society," and the "National Security League" were all tied up financially with munition plants. These societies were propaganda bureaus for "preparedness" and later for our entrance into the conflict. The nineteen men who founded the Navy League had among their number representatives of the three manufacturers of armor plate in America,--the Midvale, Bethlehem, and Carnegie Companies. The Navy League was in practice the propaganda bureau of the three companies working together to sell armor plate.

Modern warfare has become even more than a conflict of armies and of economic resources. Propaganda to secure popular support, has become more and more necessary. Both sides in the European conflict made great efforts to present their propaganda before America, but the Central Powers failed primarily because of the British blockade. The Allies, on their side, had the co-operation of American business, and easily accomplished their purpose. Professor Hayes in his "Brief History of the Great War" says: "The British resorted to every known device of propaganda from employing secret service agents in New York to maintaining at Washington the great journalist, Lord Northcliffe, with a host of assistants, as a publicity director." These propagandists had the co-operation of the bankers who had made loans to the Allies or had acted as purchasing agents. All this happened in 1916, but the American people never knew the source of their "war news" until the conflict was over. Mr. Rathom, of the Providence _Journal_, of Providence, R.I., was notorious for his accounts of German "crimes." The Boston _Herald_ of December 30, 1923, in an editorial comment, says: "It is, of course, true, as most well informed people now understand, that the Rathom disclosures which made the Providence _Journal_ famous during the war were fiction--but Rathom did this for the praiseworthy purpose of arousing his countrymen to a war fury. He took one of the practical ways of doing so." Captain Ferdinand Tuohy of the British Secret Service in "The Secret Corps" says: "All the trickery and subterfuge and war-wisdom of the ages brought up-to-date, intensified and harnessed to every modern invention and device, ... a Machiavelli, a Talleyrand or some other master schemer of the ages come back to earth, would have thrilled at the amazing cunning and corruption of it all." The Belgium authorities themselves have denied the truth of the crimes given out in the Bryce Report. Mr. Lloyd George has stated in print that careful investigations disclosed no case of Belgian children with hands cut off. Yet these are some of the crimes with which the American public were fed during 1916, 1917 and 1918. The peoples of the Central Powers were, of course, furnished similar crimes attributed to the Allies. There were many crimes committed as in all wars, but every nation, including the United States, was guilty of them.

It is not easy to explain the attitudes of many prominent officials of the United States during the years preceding our entrance into the war. Ambassador Walter H. Page, our representative in London, was guilty of direct disloyalty to the American Government and people. When President Wilson protested to the British Government against her disregard of neutral rights Mr. Page did not give the messages to Sir Edward Grey of the British Foreign Office. He would read them to him and would then ask Grey to co-operate with him in making a reply to the United States. Sir Edward Grey says in his memoirs: "Page came to see me at the foreign office one day and produced a long dispatch from Washington contesting our claims to act as we were doing in stopping contraband in going to neutral ports. 'I am instructed' he said 'to read this dispatch to you.' He read and I listened. He then said 'I have now read the dispatch but I do not agree with it. Let us consider how it should be answered.'" In all diplomacy there is no other example of such a procedure. Page was determined upon our entrance from the very beginning of the war. Many of our representatives at the principal courts of Europe were connected with the Allies personally through business or banking interests in this country.

Mr. Wilson himself was pro-British in scholarship. He was a great admirer of the cabinet-parliamentary form of government used in England. All his heroes in political science were English authorities. Mr. Wilson's former attorney-general, Thomas W. Gregory, says in a letter to the New York _Times_ of February 9, 1925, that Wilson was "by inheritance, tradition, and reasoning at all times the friend of the Allies." Mr. Tumulty also now says Mr. Wilson was never neutral.

President Wilson had become converted to the idea of intervention by the spring of 1916. Sir Edward Grey says in his memoirs that Colonel House assured him in February, 1916, that Wilson would do his best to bring the United States to the aid of the Allies. In April, 1916, the President consulted Champ Clark, Speaker of the House; Claude Kitchen, Democratic Leader; H. D. Flood, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; and other Democratic leaders regarding their willingness to bring the United States into the war on the Allied side. This is known as the famous "Sunrise Conference." They refused, and Mr. Wilson allowed his party to use as the 1916 slogan, "He kept us out of war." At the time he was afraid to advocate intervention for fear of splitting his party. There were demands on the part of certain political leaders and the press for immediate intervention but these demands were not representative of public opinion at the time. Ambassador Page brought his influence to bear on preventing the Allies from considering German proposals for peace offered in 1916 and 1917.

Allied propaganda represented Germany as lustful for world dominion. Careful examination now shows that there was no such policy except that which is common to all powers. This was part of the false propaganda spread in the United States to inflame public opinion and make our entrance "defensive." Both sides resorted to trickery of every description. Much stir was created by the Zimmermann note published in March, 1917. It was a proposal by Germany to Mexico to enter on the side of Germany should the United States join the Allies, with a view to recovering New Mexico and the surrounding territory taken by the United States from Mexico in 1848. But this was exactly what the Allies had done, when they persuaded Japan to enter in order to capture the German sphere of influence in Shantung, China. It is obvious that every nation at war will try to weaken its opponent. We encouraged the Latin American republics to declare war on Germany, which was no more than Germany did in encouraging Mexico to declare war on the United States, should we declare war on Germany. This note was distorted and reported in 1917 in a manner to give the impression that Germany was actively trying to create trouble for the United States even in peace. The fact remains that the Zimmermann proposal was not to apply unless we entered the war against Germany, when it would be a legitimate defensive measure for Germany to secure the aid of Mexico.

Brigadier General J. C. Charteris, Chief of Intelligence of the British Army during the war, stated boastfully, in New York, in an address in the fall of 1925, before the National Arts Club, that he had invented the report that Germany was boiling down the bodies of her dead soldiers to be used as fertilizer. He made the statement under the impression that no reporters were present. The Richmond _Times-Dispatch_, on December 6, 1925, said editorially:

"Not the least of the horrors of modern warfare is the propaganda bureau which is an important item in the military establishment of every nation. Neither is it the least of the many encouraging signs which each year add to the probability of eventual peace on earth.

"The famous cadaver story which aroused hatred against the German to the boiling point in this and other allied nations during the war has been denounced as a lie in the British House of Commons. Months ago, the world learned the details of how this lie was planned and broadcasted by the efficient officer in the British intelligence service. Now we are told that 'imbued with the spirit of the Locarno pact,' Sir Austen Chamberlain rose in the House, said that the German Chancellor had denied the truth of the story and that the denial had been accepted by the British government.

"A few years ago, the story of how the Kaiser was reducing human corpses to fat, aroused the citizens of this and other enlightened nations to a fury of hatred. Normally sane men doubled their fists and rushed off to the nearest recruiting sergeant. Now they are being told, in effect, that they were dupes and fools; that their own officers deliberately goaded them to the desired boiling point, using an infamous lie to arouse them, just as a grown bully whispers to one little boy that another little boy said he could lick him.

"The encouraging sign found in this revolting admission of how modern war is waged is the natural inference that the modern man is not overeager to throw himself at his brother's throat at the simple word of command. His passions must be played upon, so the propaganda bureau has taken its place as one of the chief weapons.

"In the next war, the propaganda must be more subtle and clever than the best the World War produced. These frank admissions of wholesale lying on the part of trusted governments in the last war will not soon be forgotten."

After the United States entered the war in April, 1917, we immediately created a government propaganda bureau, which was known as "The Committee on Public Information," with George Creel as chairman. Since the war, Mr. Creel has given us an account of the propaganda activities in his book--"How We Advertised America." No effort was made to present the truth. Allied propaganda was accepted and to it we added ours. This "Committee on Public Information" issued 75,099,023 pamphlets and books to encourage the public "morale." They hired the services of 75,000 speakers who operated in 5,200 communities. Altogether, about 755,190 speeches were made by these people known as the "Four Minute Men." Exhibits were given at fairs, and war films were prepared for the cinema, from which the Committee on Public Information received a royalty. A total of 1,438 drawings were employed to arouse popular hatred. An official daily newspaper was issued which had a circulation of 100,000 copies. A propaganda bureau was established by the United States, in the capitals of every nation in the world except those of the Central Powers. The total expenditure by the United States for propaganda was $6,738,223. (See George Creel, "How We Advertised America,"