while more American lives were lost in each succeeding month. 1 The most definite action was taken in Sept. against Germany's less powerful and less pernicious ally, when Dr. Dumba, the Austrian ambassador, was required to leave on account of his complicity in the intrigues of J. F. Archibald and other Teutonic agents. A graver crisis was reached with the torpedoing of the Channel steamer "Sussex" on March 24 1916. " The Govern- ment of the United States," wrote Mr. Lansing on April 18, "has .been very patient. . . . Unless the Imperial Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present -methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels, the Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German .Empire altogether." On May 4 the German Government made 5ome concessions, and as President Wilson expressed it on April 2 1917, " somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft." The reason for its complaisance, given later on by Beth- mann Hollweg, was that it had not yet sufficient submarines to carry out unrestricted submarine warfare effectively.
That time came with the beginning of 1917. The decision was taken on Jan. 9, and it was Germany's real answer to the Presi- dent's note of Dec. 18. But it was based on a serious miscalcula- tion. The German naval authorities thought it would compel Great Britain to sue for peace within six months, and Bethmann Hollweg has cast the responsibility for its effects upon them. Hindenburg's plea that the Chancellor failed to inform him of the impression it would produce in America is less convincing, for Ludendorff says that " we reckoned that the adoption of the submarine campaign would effect a favourable decision for us, at latest before America's new troops could participate in the war." So American intervention was anticipated and discounted. But eighteen months were yet to pass before American intervention took a form which was materially to disconcert Ludendorff's military calculations. For more than a year diplomatic relations had practically been severed between the United States and Austria-Hungary, and it did not at once appear that the re- sumption of unrestricted submarine warfare would be followed by more drastic American action with regard to Germany.
On Jan. 22, ignorant of Germany's decision, Mr. Wilson ad- dressed Congress on the results of his note of Dec. 18, and sketched the conditions which would justify the United States in guaranteeing peace with a view to making it permanent.
I " In every discussion of the peace that must end this war it is taken for granted that that peace must be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again. . . . Such a settlement cannot now be long postponed. . It is right that before it comes this Government should frankly formulate the conditions upon which it would be justified in asking our people to approve its formal and solemn adherence to a League of Peace. . . .No covenant of cooperative peace that does not include the peoples of this New World can suffice to keep the future safe against war. . . . It will be absolutely necessary that a force be created as a guarantee of the permanency of the settlement. . . . There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power. . . . But the implica- tions of these assurances . . . imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory. . . . Only a peace between equals can last. . . . And there is a deeper thing involved than even equality of right among organized nations. No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. . . . Statesmen everywhere are agreed that there should be a united, independent, and auton- omous Poland. . . . And the paths of the sea must alike in law and in fact be free. The freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and cooperation. . . . The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind. ... I am proposing, as it were, that all nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world ; that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people . . . that all nations should avoid entangling alliances. . . . There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. . . . These are American principles, American policies. We could stand for no others."
1 See a provisional list of these and other crimes in J. B. Scott, Diplomatic Correspondence, pp. ix.-xv.
But while it was " inconceivable that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise " of laying " afresh and upon a new plan the foundations of peace among the nations," the present war must first be ended, and the United States would " have no voice in determining . . . the treaties and agreements which would bring it to an end," only " in determin- ing whether they shall be made lasting or not by the guarantees of a universal covenant."
American Intervention. Such was the President's frame of mind. when, nine days later, on Jan. 31, Bernstorff communicated Germany's revocation of its pledge of May 4 1916 and its decision to recommence unrestricted submarine warfare on Feb. i. On Feb. 3 he simply and literally fulfilled his threat of April 18 and " severed diplomatic relations with the German Empire alto- gether." " I take it for granted," he said to Congress, "that all neutral governments will take the same course," but " we do not desire any hostile conflict with the Imperial German Govern- ment." On the 26th he pointed out that the caution of ship- owners and consequent congestion of commerce " might pres- ently accomplish, in effect, what the new German submarine orders were meant to accomplish, so far as we are concerned," and proceeded to arm American merchant ships; but he was "not now contemplating war or any steps that need lead to it. . . . War can come only by the wilful acts and aggressions of others."
It came with speedy steps. Germany denied the right of neutrals to use arms at all, and intimated that the armed guards placed on American merchant ships would be treated as pirates. " Armed neutrality," confessed the President, " it now appears, is impracticable." There had, too, been intercepted a note dated Jan. 19 from Berlin to Mexico, proposing in the event of war an offensive and defensive alliance between Germany, Mexico, and Japan, and the reconquest of Mexico's " lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona"; and on April 2 Mr. Wilson advised a special session of Congress " to declare the recent course of the Imperial Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States." " We are," he had declared in his second inaugural address on March 5, " provincials no longer. The tragical events of the thirty months of vital turmoil through which we have just passed have made us citizens of the world. There can be no turning back." And now " the world must be made safe for democracy." " The great, generous Russian people have been added in all their native majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honour. . . . We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind." The resolution was passed in the Senate on April 4 by 82 votes to 6, and in the House of Repre- sentatives on the 5th by 373 to 50, and on the 6th the President declared war. Austria was not included, but Tarnowski, Dum- ba's successor, had been refused recognition, and relations were suspended; on April 13 they were severed with Turkey.
The President's somewhat naive assumption that all neutral governments would follow his lead into armed neutrality had been promptly belied; and all European neutrals excused them- selves. They were even less likely to follow him into war; but New World States, which were more immune from the conse- quences, were more amenable to his example. Cuba declared war on April 7, and on the 8th Panama associated itself with the United States. Brazil broke off diplomatic relations on April n, Bolivia on the I3th, and Guatemala on the 27th, Honduras on May 17 and Nicaragua on the igth, Haiti on June 15, Costa Rica on Sept. 23, Peru on Oct. 6 and Uruguay on the 7th, and Ecuador on Dec. 9. Brazil declared war on Oct. 26, while the Argentine declared her benevolent neutrality on April n: but Chile and Venezuela remained neutral without benevolence. The con- tagion, however, spread into the Eastern Hemisphere: Liberia severed diplomatic relations on May 8 and declared war on Aug. 7: Siam declared war on July 22, and China on Aug. 14. Secufus judicat orbis terrarum: but the world of little States needed
