Conquest of America: A Romance of Disaster and Victory, U.S.A., 1921 A.D.
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CHAPTER X
LORD KITCHENER VISITS AMERICA AND DISCUSSES OUR MILITARY PROBLEMS
I was standing with Count Zeppelin in the doorway of Mrs. John L.Gardner's Fenway palace when the news of the great sea horror reachedBoston. The German submarine U-68, scouting off the coast of Maine,had sunk the American liner _Manhattan_, the largest passenger vesselin the world, as she raced toward Bar Harbor with her shipload ofnon-combatants. Eighteen hundred and sixty-three men, women, and childrenwent down with the ship. No warning had been given. No chance had beenoffered for women or children or neutral passengers to escape. Thedisaster duplicated the wrecking of the _Lusitania_ in 1915, but itexceeded it in loss of human life. The American captain and all his menshared the fate of the passengers intrusted to their care.
In Boston the effect on the German officers and men was unbelievable.Tremont and Boylston and Washington streets, echoing with cheers of theexulting conquerors, resembled the night of a Harvard-Yale football gamewhen Brickley used to play for Cambridge University. The citizens of thebig town, their senses deadened by their own disaster, received the news,and the ghastly celebration that followed it, without any real interest.The fact that an ex-Mayor of Boston and the son of the present Governorwere among those that perished failed to rouse them. Boston, mentally aswell as physically, was in the grip of the enemy.
That this was just the effect the Germans planned to produce is shown byGeneral von Kluck's own words. In an interview that he gave me for theLondon _Times_, after the occupation of Boston on July 2, 1921, Generalvon Kluck said:
"The way to end a war quickly is to make the burden of it oppressive uponthe people. It was on this principle that General Sherman acted in hismarch from Atlanta to the sea. It was on this principle that GeneralGrant acted in his march from Washington to Richmond. Grant said he wouldfight it out on those lines if it took all summer--meaning lines ofrelentless oppression. In modern war a weak enemy like Belgium or likeNew England, which is far weaker than Belgium was in 1914, must becrushed immediately. Think of the bloodshed that would have stained thesoil of Connecticut and Massachusetts if we had not spread terror beforeus. As it is, New England has suffered very little from the Germanoccupation, and in a very short time everything will be going on asusual."
The veteran warrior paused, and added with a laugh: "Better than usual."
As a matter of fact, within a week Boston had resumed its ordinary lifeand activities. Business was good, factories were busy, and the theatreswere crowded nightly, especially Keith's, where the latest militaryphoto-play by Thomas Dixon and Charles T. Dazey--with Mary Pickford asthe heroine and Charley Chaplin as the comedy relief--was enjoyedimmensely by German officers.
As to the commerce of Boston Harbor, it was speedily re-established, withships of all nations going and coming, undisturbed by the fact that itwas now the German flag on German warships that they saluted.
I received instructions from my paper about this time to leave NewEngland and join General Wood's forces, which had crossed the Delawareinto Pennsylvania, where they were battling desperately with vonHindenburg's much stronger army. On the day following my arrival at theAmerican headquarters, I learned that Lord Kitchener had come over fromEngland to follow the fighting as an eye-witness; and I was fortunateenough to obtain an interview with his lordship, who remembered me inconnection with his Egyptian campaigns.
"The United States is where England would have been in 1914 without herfleet," said Lord Kitchener.
"Where is that?"
"If England had been invaded by a German army in 1914," replied the greatorganiser gravely, "she would have been wiped off the map. It wasEngland's fleet that saved her. And, even so, we had a hard time of it.Everything was lacking--officers, men, uniforms, ammunition, guns,horses, saddles, horse blankets, everything except our fleet."
A sudden light burned in Lord Kitchener's strange eyes, and he addedearnestly: "There is something more than that. In 1914 Germany waswonderfully prepared in material things, but her greatest advantage overall other nations, except Japan, lay in her dogged devotion to her ownideals. She may have been wrong, as we think, but she believed inherself. There was nothing like it in England, and there is nothing likeit in America. The German masses, to the last man, woman, and child, wereinspired to give all that they had, their lives included, for the Empire.In England there was more selfishness and self-indulgence. We had labourtroubles, strike troubles, drink troubles; and finally, as you know, in1916 we were forced to adopt conscription. It will be the same story herein America."
"Don't you think that America will ultimately win?"
Lord Kitchener hesitated.
"I don't know. Germany holds New York and Boston and is marching onPhiladelphia. Think what that means! New York is the business capital ofthe nation. It is hard to conceive of the United States without NewYork."
"The Americans will get New York back, won't they?"
"How? When? It is true you have a population of eighty millions west ofthe Allegheny Mountains, and somehow, some day, their American spirit andtheir American genius ought to conquer; but it's going to be a job.Patriotism is not enough. Money is not enough. Potential resources arenot enough. It is a question of doing the essential thing before it istoo late. We found that out in England in 1916. If America could haveused her potential resources when the Germans landed on Long Island, shewould have driven her enemies into the sea within a week; but the thingwas not possible. You might as well expect a gold mine in Alaska to stopa Wall Street panic."
I found that Lord Kitchener had very definite ideas touching great socialchanges that must come in America following this long and exhausting war,assuming that we finally came out of it victorious.
"America will be a different land after this war," he said. "You willhave to reckon as never before with the lowly but enlightened millionswho have done the actual fighting. The United States of the future mustbe regarded as a vast-co-operative estate to be managed for the benefitof all who dwell in it, not for the benefit of a privileged few. AndAmerica may well follow the example of Germany, as England has since theend of the great war in 1919, in using the full power of state to lessenher present iniquitous extremes of poverty and wealth, which weakenpatriotism, and in compelling a division of the products of toil that isreally fair.
"I warn you that America will escape the gravest labour trouble with thepossibility of actual revolution only by admitting, as England hasadmitted, that from now on labour has the whip hand over capital and mustbe placated by immense concessions. You must either establish statecontrol in many industries that are now privately owned and managed andestablish state ownership in all public utilities or you must expect tosee your whole system of government swing definitely toward a socialisticregime. The day of the multi-millionaire is over."
I found another distinguished Englishman at General Wood's headquarters,Lord Northcliffe, owner of the London _Times_, and I had the unusualexperience of interviewing my own employer for his own newspaper. Asusual, Lord Northcliffe took sharp issue with Lord Kitchener on severalpoints. His hatred of the Germans was so intense that he could see nogood in them.
"The idea that Germany will be able to carry this invasion of America toa successful conclusion is preposterous," he declared. "Prussiansupermen! What are they? Look at their square heads with no backs to themand their outstanding ears! Gluttons of food! Guzzlers of drink! A raceof bullies who treat their women like squaws and drudges and then cringeto every policeman and strutting officer who makes them goose-step beforehim. Bismarck called them a nation of house-servants, and knew thatin racial aptitude they are and always will be hopelessly inferior toAnglo-Saxons.
"Conquer America? They can no more do it than they could conquer England.They can make you suffer, yes, as they made us suffer; they can fill youwith rage and shame to find yourselves utterly unprepared in this hour ofperil, eaten up with commercialism and pacifism just as we were. Butconquer this great nation with its infinite resources and i
ts splendidracial inheritance--never!
"The Germans despise America just as they despised England. John Bull wasan effete old plutocrat whose sons and daughters were given up to sportand amusement. The Kaiser, in his famous Aix-la-Chapelle order, referredscornfully to our 'contemptible little army.' He was right, it was acontemptible little army, but by the end of 1917 we had five millionfully equipped men in the field and in the summer of 1918 the Kaiser sawhis broken armies flung back to the Rhine by these same contemptibleEnglishmen and their brave allies. There will be the same marvellouschange here when the tortured American giant stirs from his sleep ofindifference and selfishness. Then the Prussian superman will learnanother lesson!"