MR. LANSING'S REVELATIONS. E "are forced to ask every morning," wrote
Horace
V Walpole in 1759, " what victory there is for fear of missing one." Just now we look every morning for fresh
disclosures by the American Government for fear of missing some new proof of the deceitfulness of German diplomacy, or some new example of the atrocities which German officials commit by order " at the expense of enemies, neutrals, and even friends. In the past week we have had from Washington full details of the plots carried on by the German and Austrian diplomatists in neutral America since the beginning of the war, for the destruction of life and property. The German Diplomatic Service seems to be manned by officials with no more moral sense than a Dr. Crippen. Lying and deceit are for them the commouplecal df diplomacy. The word of a fleflmran Ambassador is nowadays " a thing no man relies on," and " German honour " is as much a byword to us as " Punic faith " was to the Romans. Yet even now many good people here and in America are loth to believe that the Government of a Great Power like Germany can and do deliberately plan, and order their representatives to commit, the most odious crimes, such as murder, poisoning, arson, and forgery, under cover of their diplomatic privileges. Many honest men, who know that none of our diplomatists would receive such orders, or would not resign instantly if he did, cannot persuade themselves that the German Government and their accredited Ministers are really guilty of such enor- mities, and imagine that there must be some mistake. It is for these people that Mr. Lansing's revelations are intended. They must be brought to understand, as most of us do already, that the German Government, who rule the German people and control their Allies as absolutely as any despot since the world began, regard themselves as unfettered by any legal or moral code. To gain a temporary advantage, they may and do commit every sin in the calendar, and hold that they are justified by the law of self-preservation. When every one realizes that in fighting Germany we are fighting an avowedly non-moral force, which is and can be influenced by nothing but the fear of defeat and ruin, we shall hear very much less of the insidious and futile talk about an early peace by agree- ment with which mischief-makers seek to attract the unwary. We cannot bargain with a Germany whose words nauseate us by their hypocrisy, and whose acts, as revealed in official documents, are uniformly foul and base. Until the German people awakes to the horror of its situation and rids itself of the Government who have disgraced the German name in the eyes of the world, we can but fight on.
The Kaiser has just assured the Pope of his conviction that " the sick body of human society can only be healed by the fortifying moral strength of right." One way in which his agents in America sought to apply- this " fortifying moral strength " was to suborn criminals to place bombs shaped like lumps of coal in merchant vessels leaving the port of New York, so that they might be blown up on the voyage across the Atlantic. Papers to prove this were seized by American detectives in a German office in New. York in April, 1916, at the moment when the agent, Herr von Igel, was preparing to transfer his documents from a safe marked with the German Imperial arms to the greater security of the German Embassy at Washington. The police have traced a cheque signed by
Captain von Papen, the German Attache, and payable to the New York manager of the Hamburg-America Steamship Company, to the account of one of the miscreants who placed the bombs in ships during the year 1915. At the end of that year the German Government expressly denied that they had ever " knowingly accepted the support of any person, group of persona, society, or organization seeking to promote the cause of Germany in the United States by illegal acts, by counsel of violence, by contravention of the law, or by any means what- ever that could offend the American people in the pride of their own authority." But they had, nevertheless, been paying men to put infernal machines in ships leaving American ports—one of the most dastardly crimes that can be conceived by the evil wit of man. With the co-operation of the Austrian Ambas- sador, who explained the scheme in a letter to his Government, the German Embassy sought " to disorganize and hold up for months, if not entirely prevent, the manufacture of munitions in Bethlehem and the Middle West," by promoting strikes and other means. This was contrived through a German Labour Bureau, which the Austrian Minister, Dr. Dumba, publicly declared to be an innocent agency, but which he knew to be a dangerous nest of plotters against the peaee and security of America. Through Herr von Igel, the Germans were in touch with the Irish revolutionaries, such as Mr. John Devoy, editor of the Gaelic American of New York, whose connexion with the Casement plot is made plain by Mr. Lansing. Mr. Cohalan, an Irish-American who is, unfortunately, a Judge of the New York Supreme Court, is revealed as inviting Count Bernstorff to arrange for a German landing in Ireland to support the extreme Sinn Fein Party. The German Embassy was also busy in fomenting plots in Canada and India, in stirring up Mexico against America, and in buying the services of a few American journalists and lecturers to promote German interests. Count Bernstorff himself flew at still higher game. On January 22nd, 1917, nine days before Germany declared her intention to de- stroy all merchantmen at sight, and thus compelled America to break off relations with her, the German Ambassador asked his Government to authorize the expenditure of £10,000 in order, as on former occasions, to influence Congress through the organization you know of, which can perhaps prevent war." He also asked for a " public official German declara- tion in favour of Ireland," to gain the support of Irish influence in America. We are quite sure that his miserable tribes were wasted on Congressmen, but he judged their honour by his own standard, and thus unconsciously insulted the whole American people. If the German Diplomatic Service dared to do such things in America, whose enmity was to be feared, we need not be surprised to find its members resorting to still cruder and fouler methods in a little country like Rumania. When the American Charge d'Affaires took over the German Legation at Bucharest, he found buried in the garden boxes of explosives and cases of microbes. In one of these cases, under the seal of the German Consulate at Kronstadt, there was a German note explaining how the deadly anthrax germs were to be used :- " Enclosed four small bottles for horses, four for cattle. Utiliza- tion as formerly stipulated. Each phial suffices for 200 bead.. If possible to be administered directly into animals' mouths, otherwise into their fodder. We ask for small report about successes obtained there, and in case of good results the presence for one day of M.K. would be required."
The German agent who remained to help the Americans admitted " that still worse things than this box of microbes were contained in the Legation, and insinuated that they would have been found even in the cabinets of the dossiers which had been seized." We know of course that German diplomatists are accustomed to take or send consignments of bombs in their couriers' " bags," but that they habitually resort to the use of poison for cattle and horses—and perhaps for men too—has never before been so conclusively proved. It is a horrible revelation, not merely of German deeds, but of the state of mind in which such deeds could be conceived and planned long beforehand. We simply cannot imagine the staff of our Foreign Office plotting with nefarious patholo- gists in laboratories to prepare bottles of loathsome disease germs which should be stored in the Embassies and Legations abroad and let loose at a signal from headquarters. The mere idea seems grotesque in its scientific savagery. Yet this is what the German Foreign Office has done, and is perhaps still doing, while Herr von Kuhlmann lavishes honeyed words on the remaining neutrals and the Kaiser prates of his piety and of " the fortifying moral strength of right." Between such people and civilized humanity there is a great gulf, which we cannot bridge by old-fashioned treaties of peace. We have said that Germany does not scruple to treat her friends ill, if self-interest seems to demand it. The New York World has supplemented Mr. Lansing's disclosures by showing that Italy repeatedly suffered from the bad faith of her partners in the Triple Alliance. She was not informed before- hand of Austria's intention to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Two months later, we are told, General Conrad von Hoetzendorff, the Chief of Staff, proposed an utterly unpro- voked invasion of Northern Italy ; this project had the approval of the Heir-Presumptive, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and was only stopped by the opposition of Baron von Aehrenthal, the Foreign Minister. Again, Italy, as some of us conjectured at the time, seized Tripoli in 1911 mainly because Germany was on the point of doing so. M. Cambon, the French Minister at Berlin, is credited with the story of an interview at which he was present in 1912 between the Kaiser and the Turkish Minister. The Kaiser, shaking his finger in the Turk's face, cried out : " I am ashamed of you! I am ashamed of Turkey ! We believed you could beat the Italians. Had we not thought so, we should not have backed you. Now we see we put our money on the wrong horse." The story accords well enough with the facts, and with all that we now know of German diplomacy. We recall, for instance, the authentic episode of the cases of old French rifles which the Germans consigned to the Arabs in Tripoli ; it was carefully arranged that the cases should, seemingly by chance, be opened in Italy so as to cast a wholly undeserved suspicion on the French. Yet all the while it was Germany who was encouraging the Turks to resist her own ally. For double-dealing the Germans have no equals in history. However, they help to destroy their own deep-laid schemes by their childish boast- fulness. A perfect example of German cunning, and of the German swagger which is its antidote, is afforded in Admiral Dewey's official report of the prediction made to him at Manila in 1898 by Captain von Goetzen, of the German Navy, who had vainly tried to obstruct the American operations. According to this report, made public in full for the first time in the American Senate on Monday, the German officer said :— " About fifteen years from now my country will start a great war. She will be in Paris in about two months after the commencement of hostilities. Her move will be but a step to her real object—the crushing of England. Some months after we finish our work in Europe we will take New York and probably Washington, and hold them for some time. We will put your country in its place with reference to Germany. We do not propose to take any of your territory, but we do intend to take a billion or so of your dollars from New York and other places. The Monroe Doctrine will be taken charge of by us, and we will dispose of South America as we wish. Do not forget this about fifteen years from now."
Probably Admiral Dewey thought that the Captain was crazy. But he was no more and no less crazy than the whole official hierarchy to which he belonged.
We cannot end without a word of admiration for the extra- ordinary effectiveness of the American Secret Service, It has always stood high in repute for professional skill. It will now stand higher than ever. The Germans, we fancy, hardly dare to deny any new charge against them because they know that the means of exposure is probably lying in Mr. Lansing's Lucky-Bag. He has only to dip in his hand and pull it out. Nor must we forget to praise Mr. Lansing's own dexterity in making his dips at invariably the right moment.
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