A Higher Form of Killing (28 page)

President Wilson received the news of the
Lusitania
’s sinking at the end of a cabinet meeting. When he spoke to his private secretary, Joe Tumulty, he had “tears in his eyes” and told him that if he dwelled on the personal tragedies reported in the newspapers he would “see red in everything . . . I am afraid that when I am called upon to act with reference to this situation I could not be just to anyone. I dare not act unjustly and cannot indulge my passionate feelings.” After a pause, he added, “In God’s name how could any nation calling itself civilised purpose so horrible a thing?”

On Wall Street, industrial stocks plunged on news of the sinking. Bethlehem Steel, the manufacturers of the empty shrapnel shells and fuses on board the
Lusitania
, dropped from 159 to 130 and Amalgamated Copper from 74¾ to 63. A message from Colonel House in London argued that “America has come to the parting of the ways when she must determine whether she stands for civilized or uncivilized warfare . . . We can no longer remain neutral spectators. Our action in this crisis will determine the part we will play when peace is made, and how far we may influence a settlement for the lasting good of humanity . . . Our intervention will save rather than increase the loss of lives.” The American ambassador to Britain, Walter Hines Page telegrammed that “the sinking of the
Lusitania
following the use of poisonous gas . . . the English regard as the complete abandonment of war regulations and of humanity. The United States must declare war or forfeit European respect.”

Ex-President Roosevelt, whose decision to run in the 1912 presidential election as a Progressive had split the Republican vote and handed the White House to Wilson, called the sinking “the greatest act of piracy in history” and demanded “immediate decision and vigour” from the president he damned as a coward and “as insincere and cold-blooded an opportunist as we have ever had in the Presidency” and a Secretary of State he thought a “human trombone.” Ex-President Taft, the official Republican candidate in 1912, wrote in much more measured terms to Wilson suggesting that in the light of “the ruthless spirit in [Germany’s] conduct of war which breaks every accepted law of war and every principle of international justice to neutrals” a diplomatic protest might not be sufficient. Severing diplomatic relations with Germany might be a sensible way forward.

However, Wilson told Tumulty he had to consider his first step carefully and cautiously “because once having taken it I cannot withdraw from it.” He bided his time while gauging the public mood. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan led the call for moderation, arguing that the Allies could not rely upon neutral passengers to shield ships carrying contraband. “It would be like putting women and children in front of an Army,” he wrote to Wilson.

The British ambassador to Washington, Cecil Spring-Rice, gauged correctly that, although there was widespread indignation and hostility to Germany in the United States, there was little support for war. He was also, like the British government, well aware that if it joined the war, the United States would want a major say in the peace, and therefore it was more in Britain’s interest to retain the United States as a supplier of munitions. He wrote to London on May 9 cautioning, “As our main interest is to preserve U.S. as a base for supplies I hope language of our press will be very guarded.”

May 10 was a busy day for Wilson. He was now passionately in love with Edith Bolling Galt, a buxom Southern widow sixteen years younger than him. On May 4 she had refused his proposal of marriage saying she had not known him long enough and it was less than a year since his wife had died but she encouraged him to continue to hope. On May 10 he found time to meet her at least once as well as to write to her that “when I know that I am going to see you and am all a-quiver with the thought how can I use this stupid
pen
to tell you that I love you? . . . The greatest and the most delightful thing in the world [is] that I am permitted to
love you
.” Later that day the president headed for Philadelphia where he had decided to test public opinion on the
Lusitania
before a crowd of fifteen thousand, including four thousand newly naturalized citizens, in the convention hall. He told them “the example of America must be the example not merely of peace because it will not fight but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.”

Wilson, for once, misjudged the nation’s mood. Although few wanted war neither did they require intellectual theorizing that suggested principles might not be worth fighting for. The backlash was instant and not only from hawks like Theodore Roosevelt who proclaimed, “President Wilson’s delightful statement about the nation being ‘too proud to fight’ seemed to me to reach the nadir of cowardly infamy.” Wilson recognized his error and at a press conference the next day explained that he had been “expressing a personal attitude” and not giving “any intimation of policy on any special matter.” He confessed to Edith Galt, “I just do not know what I said in Philadelphia . . . because my heart was in such a whirl.” Nevertheless, the phrase “too proud to fight” would dog Wilson for the rest of his career.

On May 10 Count von Bernstorff submitted a note to the U.S. administration from his government expressing “deepest sympathy at the loss of American lives” but placing all responsibility on the British government. The sinking was one of the retaliatory measures to which the British hunger blockade had forced Germany; British merchant ships were usually armed and had “repeatedly tried to ram submarines,” thus preventing the use of “visit and search” procedures; what’s more the
Lusitania
had been carrying contraband. The German government could only regret that the American passengers had relied on British promises rather than heeding German warnings.

During a three-hour discussion the U.S. cabinet worked through a draft response prepared by Robert Lansing, which the president later redrafted. Dispatched on May 13, it reminded Germany of the principle of “strict accountability” and that America had warned Germany not to kill American citizens on the high seas. Employing submarines humanely against merchant shipping was a “practical impossibility . . . No warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed can possibly be accepted as an excuse or palliation for that act” or diminish “the responsibility for its commission.” The German government should, the memorandum demanded, disown the sinking, offer reparation, and take immediate measures to prevent its reoccurrence.

Bryan had argued for a simultaneous protest to Britain about its blockade of Germany while reviving his previous suggestion that the United States government should warn its citizens of the danger of sailing on the ships of combatant nations. Wilson rejected both proposals, the latter after consulting Lansing, still Bryan’s subordinate, because his own “strict accountability” statement in February could be construed as condoning U.S. citizens traveling on belligerent ships. To change policy now might cause people to question whether his previous position had been sound.

The more hawkish among Wilson’s cabinet and advisers were now clearly dominant, perhaps not least because—despite his desire to keep the United States neutral so it could mediate a settlement—Wilson’s private and deepest sympathies chimed with theirs, thinking as he did “England’s violation of neutral rights is different from Germany’s violation of the rights of humanity.” The administration’s firm note to the German government also resonated with most American opinion. To the
Baltimore Sun
it contained “all the red blood that a red-blooded nation can ask”; to the
New York Times
the president had “the united support of the American people.” America’s fellow neutrals approved too,
La Prensa
in Buenos Aires stating “If the principles laid down in the Note don’t prevail, there will be an end to all neutrality and universal war will come.”

American opinion against Germany grew even stronger with the publication in May of a British government report by a highly respected former British ambassador to Washington, Lord Bryce, which detailed German atrocities in Belgium. As well as such confirmed outrages as the burning of Dinant and Louvain and the cases of the indiscriminate killing and punishment shootings of civilians, it contained allegations of rape and baby murder of more dubious authenticity. Nevertheless, Bryce’s prestige, and the outrage at the sinking of the
Lusitania
, ensured that they were readily believed. The
Washington
Herald
commented that the Germans who were guilty of the “frightfulness against Belgium” were the same “who sank the
Lusitania
and murdered 115 [
sic
] Americans because England interfered with her commerce.”

On May 15 the
Times
printed the horrific story that had been circulating widely among troops at the front for some time of how counterattacking Allied troops at Ypres had discovered the body of a Canadian sergeant crucified on a Belgian barn door, hands and neck pierced by German bayonets. Even though genuinely believed by the troops, no reliable evidence has ever been produced to substantiate the story and it is quite probably untrue. However, against the background of American revulsion at other German “frightfulness” it was immediately believed and made ever more difficult Bryan’s effort to soften the president’s approach.

In May, too, the first reports of the mass killing by Germany’s allies, the Turks, of Armenians further increased feelings against Britain’s enemies. Ultimately, the death of some seven hundred thousand men, women, and children would become the first modern genocide. On May 24 the British, French, and Russian governments accused the Turks of “deliberately exterminating” the Armenians and stated: “In view of these crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilisation the Allied governments announce publicly . . . that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres.” This was one of the first uses of the phrase “crimes against humanity.”

Meanwhile Colonel House had left Europe, abandoning his attempts to broker a peace settlement. He wrote to the president: “The sinking of the
Lusitania
, the use of poisonous gases and other breaches of international laws made it impossible for me to continue the discussion in England of the freedom of the seas or the tentative formation of a peace covenant. If these things had not happened, I could have gone along and by mid-summer we would have had the belligerents discussing through you the peace terms.”

The German government reacted angrily to the American note of May 13. The kaiser spoke of “the necessity of intensified submarine warfare, even against neutrals.” Germany’s uncompromising reply reached Washington on May 31. It stated simply that its previous note had already expressed “deep regret” for the deaths of neutral citizens and suggested the American government should order a “careful examination” of the circumstances of the sinking. Despite a definitive report to the contrary from the German Foreign Office’s legal director, it repeated Germany’s claims that the
Lusitania
was an armed auxiliary cruiser, adding that the British government allowed its ships to hide behind American flags, British merchantmen had orders to ram submarines, and the
Lusitania
had been carrying Canadian troops and munitions whose explosion had caused the sinking.

Despite this firm, formal response, German civilian officials such as Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg and Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow appreciated how badly the sinking had damaged Germany’s reputation and began briefing their embassies abroad on how best to defend the position. Captain Schwieger of the
U-20
, summoned to Berlin on landing and expecting to be congratulated, was instead interrogated and according to von Tirpitz “treated very ungraciously.” Now as he anxiously awaited a U.S. response, von Bethmann Hollweg understood just how much depended on there being no further such incidents. Conscious that the Allied strategy to bring Italy into the war on their side had succeeded when Italy had declared war on Germany’s ally Austro-Hungary on May 23, and knowing that this would divert Austrian troops from the eastern front where they would have to be replaced by German divisions, he warned his colleagues that if the U-boat campaign continued as at present, it would provoke America to declare war, bringing even more forces to the Allied side. He asked the kaiser to convene a Crown Council of military and civil leaders. The kaiser agreed and the council met at the end of May.

The mood was tense. Von Falkenhayn stated that Germany’s military position on land would be prejudiced if “more neutral powers joined our enemies as a result of the U-boat war.” Von Tirpitz and Bachmann insisted that the safety of neutral ships could only be guaranteed by suspending the U-boat campaign, something they could not support. The kaiser sided with them, adding that the chancellor would have to bear the responsibility for stopping submarine warfare, a decision “which would be very unpopular among the people.” Von Müller, head of the kaiser’s naval cabinet, recommended a compromise—to issue orders to U-boat commanders “which would take the political situation into account” by telling them that when in doubt it was preferable to allow an enemy ship to escape than to sink a neutral. To his relief the kaiser agreed.