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This new era of civilised warfare we bring under the term 'freedom of the seas." Hollweg's next justification of the unlimited submarine warfare is that Secretary of State Lansing in a note to Count von Bernstorff at first said merchant ships could not be armed and then changed his mind.
Rear Admiral Hollweg's calculations that 24,253,615 tons of shipping remained for the world freight transmission at the beginning of 1917, did not take into consideration confiscation by the United States of nearly 2,500,000 tons of German and Austrian shipping in American ports. He did not expect the United States to build 3,000 new ships in 1917.
If this hypothesis be not true, and the real explanation of the alarm of the Entente Powers was the policy exemplified by Tirpitz and the other exponents of German militarism, then the whole of the reasoning in Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's book falls to the ground.
On Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's own showing France and Russia would have remained too weak to entertain the hope of success in a conflict with the Triple Alliance. Germany could, under these circumstances, have herself compelled these Powers to an entente or even an alliance. England would have been in such a case left in isolation in days in which isolation had ceased to be "splendid."
England was the real enemy, and England could not be dislodged from her powerful position in the world so long as she was allowed to continue in command of the ocean. For Bethmann Hollweg's alternative policy of a peaceful rapprochement with England he has no words but those of contempt.
It was the policy of the school to which Tirpitz and the Emperor himself belonged which made the situation one of growing danger and the Entente a necessity, for these were days when other nations near us were beginning to organize great battle-fleets. If Bethmann Hollweg's policy had prevailed there would have been no necessity for any such Entente as was the only way of safety for us.
Hollweg's book is to teach the German people what their submarines will accomplish and to steal the people for the plans her military leaders will propose and carry through on this basis. The keynote of Hollweg's arguments is taken from the words of the German song: "Der Gott der Eisen wachsen Liesz," written by Ernst Moritz Arndt.
It was easy for these Powers to represent as a defensive war what was really a war of aggression. Such was truly its nature, and England decided to join in it, actually because she was jealous of Germany's growing success in the world, and was desirous of setting a check to it. Such is Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's explanation.
He censored it with the understanding that I would never disclose his name in case the despatch was read in Germany. A few days later the Manchester, England, Guardian arrived containing my article, headed as follows: HOLLWEG'S CHANGE OF TUNE Respect for Scraps of Paper Insists on Warning by Submarines Kaiser Expected to Approve New Policy "New York, Sunday. "Cables from Mr.
In order to make this view of German conditions intelligible, it will be convenient in the first place to give some account of Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's opinions as expressed in his book, and afterward to contrast them with the views of his powerful colleague, Admiral von Tirpitz.
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