by Erik Larson
Kapitänleutnant Schwieger did his part to worsen relations between America and Germany. On September 4, 1915, in the midst of a patrol during which he sank ten steamships and one four-masted bark, he torpedoed the passenger liner Hesperian, killing thirty-two passengers and crew.
The Hesperian was clearly outbound, on its way to New York, and thus unlikely to be carrying munitions or other contraband. Among its cargo was the corpse of a Lusitania victim, Frances Stephens, a wealthy Canadian at last being transported home to Montreal.
WILSON WON reelection in 1916. He played golf nearly every day, often with the new Mrs. Wilson. They even played in snow: Secret Service man Starling painted the golf balls red to improve visibility. They routinely took drives through the countryside, a pastime Wilson adored. Marriage buoyed his spirits and eased his loneliness. Like the previous Mrs. Wilson, Edith became a trusted counselor, who listened to drafts of his speeches, critiqued his various notes to Germany, and now and then offered advice.
Outside the White House, Wilson’s many notes to Germany and their replies became the target of wry humor, as when one editor wrote: “Dear Kaiser: In spite of previous correspondence on the subject another ship with American citizens on board has been sunk. Under the circumstances we feel constrained to inform you, in a spirit of utmost friendliness, that a repetition of the incident will of necessity require the dispatch of another note to your majesty’s most estimable and peace-loving government.”
As late as December 1916, Wilson believed he could still keep America neutral and, further, that he might himself be able to serve as a mediator to bring about a peace accord. He was heartened, therefore, when that winter Germany stated it might consider seeking peace with Britain, under certain conditions. Britain dismissed the overture out of hand, describing it as a German attempt to declare victory, but to Wilson it offered at least the hope that future negotiations could take place. Germany’s ambassador to America, Count Johann-Heinrich von Bernstorff, reinforced Wilson’s optimism, signaling that Germany was indeed willing to engage in discussions toward peace.
But Bernstorff tended to be more optimistic than facts warranted and possessed only a limited grasp of a new and dramatic change in his own government’s thinking.
IN GERMANY, a paradoxical shift was under way. Even as its leaders seemed to be maneuvering toward peace, the camp within the government that favored all-out submarine warfare gained ground. These were military officials who now sought authority to sink all merchant ships entering the war zone, neutral or otherwise—even American vessels. The shift was driven in part by the enthusiasm of the German public, who, dismayed by the carnage of the trenches, had come to see the U-boat as a miracle weapon—a Wunderwaffe—that if deployed for total war would quickly force Britain to her knees. This coincided with a fundamental change in German naval thinking, in which Schwieger and U-20 played an important role.
Throughout the fall of 1916, Schwieger had continued his exemplary performance as a submarine commander, sinking ship after ship, but early that November he ran into trouble. While returning from a three-week patrol in the Western Approaches, his boat ran aground, in fog, about 20 feet from the Danish shore. He radioed for assistance. The response was overwhelming. Admiral Scheer ordered destroyers to the scene, to attempt to pull U-20 loose, and dispatched an entire battle squadron—cruisers and battleships—to provide protection. Still U-20 remained mired. Schwieger was ordered to destroy the boat to keep it from falling into enemy hands. He exploded two torpedoes in the bow. If his intent was to obliterate the boat, he failed. The bow was mangled, but the rest of the boat, and its gun, remained intact, embedded in the sand to a depth of about 15 feet, and fully visible from the shore.
Meanwhile, in London, Room 40 began receiving wireless intercepts that indicated something extraordinary was taking place. The Room 40 log noted, “Great excitement & activity.” The Admiralty dispatched a submarine to the scene, whose commander found four battleships and managed to torpedo two of them, damaging both, sinking neither.
The episode proved to have a crystallizing effect on German naval strategy. At first, Kaiser Wilhelm upbraided Admiral Scheer for putting so many ships at risk on behalf of one submarine. But Scheer countered that the U-boat force had supplanted the High Seas Fleet as the primary offensive weapon of the German navy. The fleet, hiding in its bases while ostensibly waiting for the great battle, had achieved nothing. Henceforth, Scheer told Wilhelm, the fleet “will have to devote itself to one task—to get the U-boats safely out to sea and bring them safely home again.” Scheer argued that U-20 was especially important, because if the Royal Navy had been allowed to destroy or capture the U-boat that had sunk the Lusitania, “this would be glad tidings for the British Government.”
He told Wilhelm that if submarine crews were to maintain their daring—their “ardor”—they needed full assurance that they would not be abandoned if they encountered difficulties. “To us,” Scheer declared, “every U-boat is of such importance, that it is worth risking the whole available Fleet to afford it assistance and support.”
By this point, Germany’s U-boat fleet had achieved a level of strength that at last gave it the potential to become a truly imposing force. Where in May 1915 the navy had only thirty U-boats, by 1917 it had more than one hundred, many larger and more powerful than Schwieger’s U-20 and carrying more torpedoes. With this robust new fleet now ready, the pressure to deploy it to the fullest grew steadily.
A German admiral, Henning von Holtzendorff, came up with a plan so irresistible it succeeded in bringing agreement between supporters and opponents of unrestricted warfare. By turning Germany’s U-boats loose, and allowing their captains to sink every vessel that entered the “war zone,” Holtzendorff proposed to end the war in six months. Not five, not seven, but six. He calculated that for the plan to succeed, it had to begin on February 1, 1917, not a day later. Whether or not the campaign drew America into the war didn’t matter, he argued, for the war would be over before American forces could be mobilized. The plan, like its territorial equivalent, the Schlieffen plan, was a model of methodical German thinking, though no one seemed to recognize that it too embodied a large measure of self-delusion. Holtzendorff bragged, “I guarantee upon my word as a naval officer that no American will set foot on the Continent!”
Germany’s top civilian and military leaders converged on Kaiser Wilhelm’s castle at Pless on January 8, 1917, to consider the plan, and the next evening Wilhelm, in his role as supreme military commander, signed an order to put it into action, a decision that would prove one of the most fateful of the war. On January 16, the German Foreign Office sent an announcement of the new campaign to Ambassador Bernstorff in Washington, with instructions that he deliver it to Secretary Lansing on January 31, the day before the new campaign was to begin. The timing was an affront to Wilson: it left no opportunity for protest or negotiation and came even as Bernstorff was promoting the idea that Germany really did want peace.
Wilson was outraged but chose not to see the declaration itself as sufficient justification for war. What he did not yet know was that there was a second, very secret message appended to the telegram Bernstorff had received and that both telegrams had been intercepted and relayed to Blinker Hall’s intelligence division in the Old Admiralty Building in London, which by now oversaw a second, and singularly sensitive, component of Room 40’s operations—the interception of diplomatic communications, both German and, incidentally, American.
THE FIRST OF Hall’s men to grasp the importance of the second telegram was one of his top code breakers, Lt. Cdr. Nigel de Grey. On the morning of January 17, 1917, a Wednesday, Hall and another colleague were attending to routine matters, when de Grey walked into the office.
“D.I.D.,” he began—using the acronym for Director of Intelligence Division—“d’you want to bring America into the war?”
“Yes, my boy,” Hall answered. “Why?”
De Grey told him that a message had come in that was
“rather astonishing.” It had been intercepted the day before, and de Grey had not yet managed to read the entire text, but what he had deciphered thus far seemed almost too far-fetched to be plausible.
Hall read the partial decrypt three or four times, in silence. “I do not remember a time when I was more excited,” he wrote.
But just as quickly, he realized that the remarkable nature of the message presented a challenge. To disclose the text right away would not only put the secret of Room 40 at risk but also raise questions about the credibility of the message, for what it proposed was certain to raise skepticism.
The telegram was from Germany’s foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, written in a new code that was unfamiliar to Room 40. The process of rendering its text in coherent English was slow and difficult, but gradually the essential elements of the message came into view, like a photograph in a darkroom bath. It instructed Germany’s ambassador in Mexico to offer Mexican president Venustiano Carranza an alliance, to take effect if the new submarine campaign drew America into the war. “Make war together,” Zimmermann proposed. “Make peace together.” In return, Germany would take measures to help Mexico seize previously held lands—“lost territory”—in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Hall had no doubt as to the telegram’s importance. “This may be a very big thing,” he told de Grey, “possibly the biggest thing of the war. For the present not a soul outside this room is to be told anything at all.” And that included even Hall’s superiors in the Admiralty.
Hall hoped he could avoid revealing the telegram altogether. There was a chance that Germany’s declaration of unrestricted U-boat warfare by itself would persuade President Wilson that the time for war had come. Hall’s hopes soared on February 3, 1917, when Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and ordered Ambassador Bernstorff to leave. But Wilson stopped short of calling for war. In a speech that day, Wilson stated that he could not believe Germany really intended to attack every ship that entered the war zone and added, “Only actual overt acts on their part can make me believe it even now.”
Hall realized the time for action had come—that he had to get the telegram into American hands but at the same time protect the secret of Room 40. Through a bit of skulduggery, Hall managed to acquire a copy of the telegram as it had been received in Mexico, from an employee of the Mexican telegraph office, thereby allowing Britain to claim that it had obtained the telegram using conventional espionage techniques. On February 24, 1917, Britain’s foreign secretary formally presented a fully translated copy of the telegram to U.S. ambassador Page.
WILSON WANTED to release the text immediately, but Secretary Lansing counseled against it, urging that they first confirm beyond doubt that the message was real. Wilson agreed to wait.
That same day, the news broke that a Cunard passenger liner, the Laconia, had been sunk off the coast of Ireland, after being struck by two torpedoes. Among the dead were a mother and daughter from Chicago. Edith Galt Wilson had known them both.
WILSON AND LANSING resolved to leak the telegram to the Associated Press, and on the morning of March 1, 1917, America’s newspapers made it front-page news. Skeptics immediately proclaimed the telegram to be a forgery concocted by the British, just as Lansing and Captain Hall had feared would happen. Lansing expected Zimmermann to deny the message, thereby forcing the United States either to disclose the source or to stand mute and insist that the nation trust the president.
But Zimmermann surprised him. On Friday, March 2, during a press conference, Zimmermann himself confirmed that he had sent the telegram. “By admitting the truth,” Lansing wrote, “he blundered in a most astounding manner for a man engaged in international intrigue. Of course the message itself was a stupid piece of business, but admitting it was far worse.”
THE REVELATION that Germany hoped to enlist Mexico in an alliance, with the promise of U.S. territory as a reward, was galvanizing by itself, but it was followed on Sunday, March 18, by news that German submarines had sunk three more American ships, without warning. (To add to the sense of global cataclysm, a popular rebellion sweeping Russia—the so-called February Revolution—had caused the abdication on March 15 of Tsar Nicholas and filled the next day’s papers with news of violence in the streets of Russia’s then capital, Petrograd.) A tectonic shift occurred in the nation’s mood. The press now called for war. As historian Barbara Tuchman put it: “All these papers had been ardently neutral until Zimmermann shot an arrow in the air and brought down neutrality like a dead duck.”
Secretary Lansing was elated. “The American people are at last ready to make war on Germany, thank God,” he wrote in a personal memorandum, in which he revealed a certain bloodlust. “It may take two or three years,” Lansing wrote. “It may even take five years. It may cost a million Americans; it may cost five million. However long it may take, however many men it costs we must go through with it. I hope and believe that the President will see it in this light.”
Wilson gathered his cabinet on March 20, 1917, and asked each member to state his views. One by one each weighed in. All said the time for war had come; most agreed that in effect a state of war already existed between America and Germany. “I must have spoken with vehemence,” Lansing wrote, “because the President asked me to lower my voice so that no one in the corridor could hear.”
Once all had spoken, Wilson thanked them but gave no hint as to what course he would take.
The next day, he sent a request to Congress to convene a special session on April 2. He prepared his speech, again typing on his Hammond portable. Ike Hoover, the White House usher, told another member of the staff that judging by Wilson’s mood, “Germany is going to get Hell in the address to Congress. I never knew him to be more peevish. He’s out of sorts, doesn’t feel well, and has a headache.”
To prevent leaks, Wilson asked Hoover to bring the speech to the printing office in person, on the morning of April 2. That same day, news arrived that a German submarine had sunk yet another American ship, the Aztec, killing twenty-eight U.S. citizens. Wilson hoped to speak that afternoon, but various congressional processes intervened, and he was not called until the evening. He left the White House at 8:20 P.M.; Edith had set off for the Capitol ten minutes earlier.
A spring rain fell, soft and fragrant; the streets gleamed from the ornate lamps along Pennsylvania Avenue. The dome of the Capitol was lit for the first time in the building’s history. Wilson’s Treasury secretary and son-in-law, William McAdoo, would later recall how the illuminated dome “stood in solemn splendor against the dark wet sky.” Despite the rain, hundreds of men and women lined the avenue. They removed their hats and watched with somber expressions as the president passed slowly in his car, surrounded by soldiers on horseback, as clear a sign as any of what was to come. Hooves beat steadily against the street and gave the procession the air of a state funeral.
Wilson arrived at the Capitol at 8:30, to find it heavily guarded by additional cavalry, the Secret Service, post office inspectors, and city police. Three minutes later, the Speaker announced, “The President of the United States.” The vast chamber exploded with cheers and applause. Small American flags fluttered everywhere, like birds’ wings. The tumult continued for two minutes, before settling to allow Wilson to begin.
He spoke in the direct and cool manner that had become familiar to the nation and that listeners often described as professorial. His voice betrayed no hint of what he was now prepared to ask of Congress. At first he kept his eyes on his text, but as he progressed he now and then looked up to underscore a point.
He described Germany’s behavior as constituting “in effect nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States.” He outlined Germany’s past efforts at espionage and alluded to the Zimmermann telegram, and he cast America’s coming fight in lofty terms. “The world,” he said, “must be made safe for democracy.”
At this there rose the sound of one man’s applause, slow and loud. Sen. John Sha
rp Williams, a Mississippi Democrat, brought his hands together “gravely, emphatically,” according to a reporter for the New York Times. In the next moment, the idea that this was the centerpiece of Wilson’s speech, and that it encapsulated all that America might hope to achieve, suddenly dawned on the rest of the senators and representatives, and a great roar filled the room.
Wilson’s remarks gained force and momentum. Warning of “many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead,” he declared that America’s fight was a fight on behalf of all nations.
“To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.”
Now came pandemonium. Everyone rose at once. Flags waved. Men cheered, whistled, shouted, cried. Wilson had spoken for thirty-six minutes; he never mentioned the Lusitania by name. He quickly walked from the chamber.
Four days passed before both houses of Congress approved a resolution for war. During this period, as if deliberately seeking to ensure that no American had last-minute doubts, U-boats sank two American merchant ships, killing at least eleven U.S. citizens. Congress took so long not because there was any question whether the resolution would pass but because every senator and representative understood this to be a moment of great significance and wanted to have his remarks locked forever in the embrace of history. Wilson signed the resolution at 1:18 P.M. on April 6, 1917.
To Winston Churchill, it was long overdue. In his memoir-like history The World Crisis, 1916–1918, he said of Wilson, “What he did in April, 1917, could have been done in May, 1915. And if done then what abridgment of the slaughter; what sparing of the agony; what ruin, what catastrophes would have been prevented; in how many million homes would an empty chair be occupied today; how different would be the shattered world in which victors and vanquished alike are condemned to live!”
