America"s War for Humanity.
by Thomas Herbert Russell.
DEDICATION
To the soldiers and sailors of the United States and Canada; to the men of the armies and navies of nations allied with us; to the splendid courage and devotion of American, French, British and Belgian women, who have endured in silence the pain of losses worse than death, and never faltered in works of mercy for which no thanks can ever pay; to all the agencies of good that have helped save civilization and the world from the most dreadful menace of all time, this volume is dedicated.
To the honor of those nations upon whom the laurel of victory has descended. To those who have vouchsafed for us the permanence of the higher ideals of humanity and civilization.
To those who have sheltered posterity from the dominance of barbarity, brutality, serfdom, bigotry and degradation.
To those who have striven against the Teuton and the Turk that G.o.d-given and G.o.d-ordained freedom may triumph.
To those n.o.ble stoics of Belgium, of France, of Serbia, of Roumania, of Poland and all other peoples who have felt the mailed fist of the ruthless oppressor; who have looked upon their devastated fields, their dismantled cathedrals, their violated hearth-stones and the desecrated graves of their kindred, and that peace, tranquillity, contentment and prosperity may again be restored to them in bounteous meed.
To those heroes who by their valor, their vigor and their inspired devotion to right and patriotism have so n.o.bly fought and conquered.
To those martyrs whom G.o.d in his immutable manifestations has chosen for the ultimate sacrifice of their lives upon the altar of freedom and humanity"s cause.
In honor to these who have attained this glorious victory. In honor to the commingling flags of the allied nations reflecting in their rainbow hues a covenant of everlasting peace in this their hour of triumph, may we all consecrate our purposes and our lives to a brotherhood of mankind, a spirit of broadest humanity and universal peace on earth.
--_L.J. Robinson_.
PREFACE
With the signing of an armistice November 11, 1918, by the plenipotentiaries of the nations at war, active hostilities were halted while the sweeping terms of the truce were being complied with by Germany. The collapse of the Teutonic forces came with a suddenness that was surprising, and the collapse was complete. The German army and navy ceased to be a menace to the civilized world--and all civilization rejoiced with an exceeding great joy.
Remarkable events in the world"s history followed with amazing rapidity, and are duly recorded in all their interesting details in these pages.
The flight and abdication of the Kaiser; the abject surrender of the German high seas fleet and submarines to the British Grand Fleet and its American a.s.sociates; the withdrawal of the defeated German armies from Belgium and France; the return of the French flag to Alsace and Lorraine; the occupation of Metz, Stra.s.sburg, Cologne, and Coblentz by Allied and American forces, and the memorable entry of Belgian troops as conquerors into Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen); the sailing of the President of the United States to take part in the Peace Conference--all these events and many others form part of the marvelous record of the recent past, furnishing material that has never been equaled for the use of the historian.
Now the eyes of all America are turned to the eastern horizon, and would fain scan the wide waters of the Atlantic, on the watch for the home-coming heroes of the great conflict. A million young Americans are coming home--but a million more will stay abroad awhile, to safeguard the fruits of victory and insure the safety of the world. Truly the story of their achievements, in permanent form, should find a place in every American home, for in the words of General Pershing, their great commander:
"Their deeds are immortal and they have earned the eternal grat.i.tude of their country."
T.H.R.
INTRODUCTION
PRESIDENT WILSON"S EPOCHAL ADDRESS
CALLING FOR ACTION AGAINST GERMANY, DELIVERED BY HIM TO THE CONGRESS IN EXTRAORDINARY SESSION, APRIL 3,
"Gentlemen of the Congress: I have called the congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor const.i.tutionally permissible that I should a.s.sume the responsibility of making.
"On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the imperial German government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coast of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean.
HOPED FOR MODIFIED WARFARE
"That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the imperial government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that pa.s.senger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats.
"The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.
"The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents.
"Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed area by the German government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of ident.i.ty, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compa.s.sion or of principle.
RELIED ON LAW OF NATIONS
"I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would be in fact done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations.
"International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.
"This minimum of right the German government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world.
_PRESIDENT WILSON"S WAR ADDRESS_
CHALLENGE TO ALL MANKIND
"I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.
"It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way.
"There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feelings away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious a.s.sertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right--of human right--of which we are only a single champion.
"When I addressed the congress on the 26th of February last I thought that it would suffice to a.s.sert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence.
"But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks, as the law of nations has a.s.sumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea.
"It is common prudence in such circ.u.mstances, grim necessity, indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intentions.
They must be dealt with upon sight if dealt with at all.
"The German government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend.
"The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best. In such circ.u.mstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents.
"There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: We will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs. They cut to the very roots of human life.