CHAPTER IV THE HATE CAMPAIGN AGAINST AMERICA W HILE Germany was professing her friendship for the United States in every note written following the sinking of the Lusitania, the government was secretly preparing the nation for a break in diplomatic relations, or for war, in the event of a rupture. German officials realised that unless the people were made to suspect Mr. Wilson and his motives, unless they were made to resent the shipment of arms and ammunition to the Allies, there would be a division in public opinion and the government would not be able to count upon the united support of the people. Because the government does the thinking for the people it has to tell them what to think before they have reached the point of debating an issue themselves. A war with America or a break in diplomatic relations in 1915 would not have been an easy matter to explain, if the people had not been encouraged to hate Wilson. So while Germany maintained a propaganda bureau in America to interpret Germany and to maintain good relations, she started in Germany an extensive propaganda against Wilson, the American press, the United States Ambassador and Americans in general. This step was not necessary in the army because among army officers the bitterness and hatred of the United States were deeper and more extensive than the hatred of any other belligerent. It was hardly ever possible for the American correspondents to go to the front without being insulted. Even the American military attachés, when they went to the front, had to submit to the insults of army officers. After the sinking of the Arabic the six military observers attached to the American Embassy were invited by the General Staff to go to Russia to study the military operations of Field Marshal von Mackensen. They were escorted by Baron von Maltzahn, former attaché of the German Embassy in Paris. At Lodz, one of the largest cities in Poland, they were taken to headquarters. Von Maltzahn, who knew Mackensen personally, called at the Field Marshal's offices, reported that he had escorted six American army officers under orders of the General Staff, whom he desired to present to the Commander-in-Chief. Von Mackensen replied that he did not care to meet the Americans and told von Maltzahn that the best thing he could do would be to escort the observers back to Berlin. As soon as the military attachés reached Berlin and reported this to Washington they were recalled. But this was not the only time von Mackensen, Cowards, who kill three thousand miles away, Month after month your countless chimneys roar,- You, who prolong this hideous hell on earth, There is pollution in your blood-smeared gold, Of your "Humanity"! 'Tis empty breath. What shall it profit you to heap on high, When you must face them-those you caused to die, He is not mocked; His vengeance doth not sleep; Think not to plead :-"I did not act alone," You, to whose vaults this wholesale murder yields Count up your corpses on these blood-soaked fields! Hear... till your death. your victims' moans of pain! Then, when at night you, sleepless, fear to pray, Watch the thick, crimson stream draw near your bed, And shriek with horror, till the dawn of day Shall find you raving at your heaps of dead! July 4th, 1916. JOHN L. STODDARD. The League of Truth 40 Potsdamer Str. Printed by Barthe & Co., Berlin W. or other army officers, showed their contempt for the United States. After the fall of Warsaw a group of American correspondents were asked to go to the headquarters of General von Besseler, afterward named Governor General of Poland. The general received them in the gardens of the Polish castle which he had seized as his headquarters; shook hands with the Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Swiss and South American newspaper men, and then, before turning on his heels to go back to his Polish palace, turned to the Americans and said: "As for you gentlemen, the best thing you can do is to tell your country to stop shipping arms and ammunition." During General Brusiloff's offensive I was invited together with other correspondents to go to the Wohlynian battlefields to see how the Germans had reorganised the Austrian front. In a little town near the Stochod River we were invited to dinner by Colonel von Luck. I sat opposite the colonel, who was in charge of the reorganisation here. Throughout the meal he made so many insulting remarks that the officer who was our escort had to change the trend of the conversation. Before he did so the colonel said: "Tell me, do they insult you in Berlin like this?" I replied that I seldom encountered such antagonism in Berlin; that it was chiefly the army which was anti-American. "Well, that's the difference between the diplomats and the army. If the army was running the government we would probably have had war with America a long time ago," he concluded, smiling sarcastically. Shortly after the sinking of the Lusitania the naval propaganda bureau had bronze medals cast and placed on sale at souvenir shops throughout Germany. Ambassador Gerard received one day, in exchanging some money, a fifty mark bill, with the words stamped in purple ink across the face: "God punish England and America." For some weeks this rubber stamp was used very effectively. The Navy Department realised, too, that another way to attack America and especially Americans in Berlin, was to arouse the suspicion that every one who spoke English was an enemy. The result was that most Americans had to be exceedingly careful not to talk aloud in public places. The American correspondents were even warned at the General Staff not to speak English at the front. Some of the correspondents who did not speak German were not taken to the battle areas because the Foreign Office desired to avoid insults. The year and a half between the sinking of the Lusitania and the severance of diplomatic relations was a period of terror for most Americans in Germany. Only those who were so sympathetic with Germany that they were anti-Ameri |