Part 17 (2/2)
When Prince Henry, the Kaiser's brother, visited America, he spent most of his time with German-Americans and German-American societies in order to a.s.sist this propaganda.
Even in peace time, the German-American who returns to the village in which he lived as a boy and who walks down the village street exploiting himself and his property, does not help good relations between the two countries. Envy is the mother of hate and the envied and returned German-American receives only a lip welcome in the village of his ancestors.
Caricatures of Uncle Sam, and of President Wilson were published in all German papers. A caricature representing our President releasing the dove of peace with one hand while he poured out munitions for the Allies with the other was the least unpleasant.
As I have said, from the tenth of August, 1914, to the twenty-fifth of September, 1915, the Emperor continually refused to receive me on the ground that he would not receive the Amba.s.sador of a country which furnished munitions to the enemies of Germany; and we were thoroughly black-listed by all the German royalties. I did not see one, however humble, after the outbreak of the war, with the exception of Prince Max of Baden, who had to do with prisoners of war in Germany and in other countries. On one occasion I sent one of my secretaries to the palace of Princess August Wilhelm, wife of one of the Kaiser's sons, with a contribution of money for her hospital, she having announced that she would personally receive contributions on that day. She took the money from the secretary and spoke bitterly against America on account of the s.h.i.+pment of arms.
Even some boxes of cigarettes we sent another royalty at the front at Christmas time, 1914, were not acknowledged.
Dr. Jacobs, who was the correspondent in Berlin of _Musical_America_, and who remained there until about the twenty-sixth of April, 1917, was called on about the sixteenth of April, 1917, to the Kommandantur and subjected to a cross-examination. During this cross-examination he was asked if he knew about the ”League of Truth,” and why he did not join that organisation. Whether it was a result of his non-joining or not, I do not know, but during the remainder of his stay in Berlin he was compelled to report twice a day to the police and was not allowed to leave his house after eight o'clock in the evening. The question, however, put to him shows the direct interest that the German authorities took in the existence of this malodorous organisation.
It appears in some of the circulars issued by the League of Truth that I was accused of giving American pa.s.sports to Englishmen in order to enable them to leave the country.
After I left Germany there was an interpellation in the Reichstag about this, and Zimmermann was asked about the charge which he said he had investigated and found untrue.
In another chapter I have spoken of the subject of the selling of arms and supplies by America to the Allies. No German ever forgets this. The question of legality or treaties never enters his mind: he only knows that American supplies and munitions killed his brother, son or father. It is a hate we must meet for long years.
CHAPTER XVII
DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS (_Continued_)
A few days after the events narrated in Chapter XII, von Jagow called to see me at the Emba.s.sy and invited me to visit the Emperor at the Great General Headquarters; but he did not state why I was asked, and I do not know to this day whether the Chancellor and those surrounding the Emperor had determined on a temporary settlement of the submarine question with the United States and wished to put that settlement out, as it were, under the protection of the Emperor, or whether the Emperor was undecided and those in favour of peace wished me to present to him the American side of the question. I incline to the latter view. Von Jagow informed me that an officer from the Foreign Office would accompany me and that I should be allowed to take a secretary and the huntsman (_Leibjaeger_), without whom no Amba.s.sador ever travels in Germany.
Mr. Grew, our counsellor, was very anxious to go and I felt on account of his excellent work, as well as his seniority, that he was ent.i.tled to be chosen. Lieutenant von Prittwitz, who was attached to the Foreign Office as a sort of special aide to von Jagow, was detailed to accompany us. We were given a special salon car and left on the evening of Friday, April twenty-eighth.
As we neared the front by way of the line running through Saar Brucken, our train was often halted because of long trains of hospital cars on their way from the front to the base hospitals in the rear; and as we entered France there were many evidences of the obstinate fights which had raged in this part of the country in August, 1914. Parts of the towns and villages which we pa.s.sed were in ruins, and rough trench lines were to be discerned on some of the hillsides. At the stations, weeping French women dressed in black were not uncommon sights, having just heard perhaps of the death, months before, of a husband, sweetheart or son who had been mobilised with the French army.
The fortress city of Metz through which we pa.s.sed seemed to be as animated as a beehive. Trains were continuously pa.s.sing. Artillery was to be seen on the roads and automobiles were hurrying to and fro.
The Great General Headquarters of the Kaiser for the Western Front is in the town of Charleville-Mezieres, situated on the Meuse in the Department of the Ardennes, which Department at that time was the only French Department wholly in the possession of the Germans. We were received at the railway station by several officers and escorted in one of the Kaiser's automobiles, which had been set apart for my use, to a villa in the town of Charleville, owned by a French manufacturer named Perin. This pretty little red brick villa had been christened by the Germans, ”Sachsen Villa,”
because it had been occupied by the King of Saxony when he had visited the Kaiser. A French family servant and an old gardener had been left in the villa, but for the few meals which we took there two of the Emperor's body huntsmen had been a.s.signed, and they brought with them some of the Emperor's silver and china.
The Emperor had been occupying a large villa in the town of Charleville until a few days before our arrival. After the engineer of his private train had been killed in the railway station by a bomb dropped from a French aeroplane, and after another bomb had dropped within a hundred yards of the villa occupied by the Kaiser, he moved to a red brick chateau situated on a hill outside of Charleville, known as either the Chateau Bellevue or Bellaire.
Nearly every day during our stay, we lunched and dined with von Bethmann-Hollweg in the villa of a French banker, which he occupied.
About ten people were present at these dinners, the Chancellor's son-in-law, Zech, Prittwitz, two experts in international law, both attached to the Foreign Office, and, at two dinners, von Treutler, the Prussian Minister to Bavaria, who had been a.s.signed to represent the Foreign Office near the person of the Kaiser and Helfferich who, towards the end of our stay, had been summoned from Berlin.
I had been working hard at German and as von Bethmann-Hollweg does not like to talk English and as some of these persons did not speak that language we tried to carry on the table conversation in German, but I know that when I tried to explain, in German, to Helfferich the various tax systems of America, I swam out far beyond my linguistic depth.
During our stay here I received cables from the Department of State which were transmitted from Berlin in cipher, and which Grew was able to decipher as he had brought a code book with him. In one of these it was expressly intimated that in any settlement of the submarine controversy America would make no distinction between armed and unarmed merchant s.h.i.+ps.
We formed for a while quite a happy family. The French owners of the villa seemed to have had a fondness for mechanical toys.
After dinner every night these toys were set going, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of von Bethmann-Hollweg. One of these toys, about two feet high, was a Hoochi-Koochi dancer and another successful one was a clown and a trained pig, both climbing a step ladder and performing marvellous feats thereon. Grew, who is an excellent musician, played the piano for the Chancellor and at his special request played pieces by Bach, the favourite composer of von Bethmann-Hollweg's deceased wife. One day we had tea in the garden of the villa formerly occupied by the Emperor, with the Prince of Pless (who is always with the Kaiser, and who seemed to be a prime favourite with him), von Treutler and others, and motored with Prince Pless to see some marvellous Himalayan pheasants reared by an old Frenchman, an ex-jailer, who seemed to have a strong instinct to keep something in captivity,
The Kaiser's automobile, which he had placed at my disposal, had two loaded rifles standing upright in racks at the right and left sides of the car, ready for instant use. On one day we motored, always, of course, in charge of the officers detailed to take care of us, to the ancient walled city of Rocroy and through the beautiful part of the Ardennes forest lying to the east of it, returning to Charleville along the heights above the valley of the Meuse.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AMBa.s.sADOR GERARD AND HIS PARTY IN SEDAN.]
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