Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
Yet there was an attempt to interject their release into the international crisis as an olive branch and a concession to American feeling. The two issues were distinct; but Germany, by her subsequent action, managed to link them together. Ambassador Gerard requested his passports on February 5, 1917, while the release of the Yarrowdale prisoners was pending.
The publication of the plans of Germany for involving the United States in war with Mexico and Japan came merely as added stimulus. So also of the story of the cruelties heaped by the Germans on the American prisoners of the Yarrowdale. There was so much of justice in the cause that passion was notable by its absence.
I supposed that possibly Germany might therefore approach the submarine controversy by this route and claim that armed merchantmen were liable to be sunk without notice. Instructed by the State Department, I demanded the immediate release of the Yarrowdale prisoners.
"They will be released just as soon as we learn of the fate of the German crews in American ports," said Herr Zimmermann, Foreign Secretary. Germany had already been assured that the crews were in no danger. The conviction grew that she meant to detain the Yarrowdale seamen as hostages pending a determination of the crisis as to peace or war.
At first I thought that Germany would approach the resumption of ruthless submarine war via the armed merchantman issue. The case of the Yarrowdale prisoners seemed to bear out this theory. A German raider captured and sunk a number of enemy vessels and sent one of the captured boats, the Yarrowdale, with a prize crew to Swinemunde.
Thereupon Ambassador Gerard and an entourage of some 120 Americans received their passports and left the German capital on February 10, 1917, for the United States via Switzerland and Spain. Germany was less ready to release the Americans known as the Yarrowdale prisoners.
On board, held as prisoners, were a number of the crews of the captured vessels; and among those men I learned "under the rose," were some Americans. The arrival of the Yarrowdale was kept secret for some time, but as soon as I received information of its arrival, I sent note after note to the Foreign Office demanding to know if there were any Americans among the prisoner crews.
Until it received assurances regarding the "fate" of the ex-ambassador and learned what treatment was to be meted out to the "captured" crews of the German vessels, the kaiser's government detained Ambassador Gerard, his staff, a number of Americans, including newspaper correspondents, as well as the Yarrowdale men. It practically held all Americans in Germany as prisoners for a week.
President Wilson, with his cabinet, prepared a bill of particulars containing the grievances against the German government, with special emphasis on the refusal of the latter to liberate seventy-two American seamen taken to Germany as prisoners on the steamer Yarrowdale, one of the vessels captured in the South Atlantic by the raider supposed to be the Moewe.
About the same time the German Government acceded to a demand made by Secretary Lansing for the release of a number of Americans captured from ships sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic and taken to a German port on board one of them, the British steamer Yarrowdale. Germany had no right to hold these men as prisoners at all, since they were neutrals.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking