Another set of windows looked east toward the residence. If he caught sight of Archie or Quentin misbehaving in the garden, he had only to heave up a sash and roar at them. Thick doors (and a NO SMOKING sign) insulated him from supplicants and sycophants collecting in Secretary Cortelyou’s big office beyond, and from gentlemen of the press, who now had their own den down the corridor. An oil portrait of Lincoln hung over the mantel, where he could see it at all times. Logs glowed in the fireplace; a tiny clock ticked. Polished leather under his cuffs reflected an art nouveau lamp and silver bowl of American Beauty roses.
The room’s main decoration was a huge globe. Spun and stopped at a certain angle, this orb showed the Americas floating alone and green from pole to pole, surrounded by nothing but blue. Tiny skeins of foam (visible only to himself, as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Navy) wove protectively across both oceans, as far south as the bulge of Venezuela and as far west as the Philippines. Asia and Australia were pushed back by the curve of the Pacific. Africa and Arabia drowned in the Indian Ocean. Europe’s jagged edge clung to one horizon, like the moraine of a retreating glacier.
When Roosevelt spoke of the Western Hemisphere, this was how he saw it—not the left half of a map counterbalanced by kingdoms and empires, but one whole face of the earth, centered on the United States. And here, microscopically small in the power center of this center, was himself sitting down to work.
There was nothing much he could do right now about the Caribbean theater, except wait for an opportunity to invoke the Monroe Doctrine there, once and for all. President Cleveland had attempted to do so definitively against Britain in 1895—also in a matter regarding Venezuela—but Lord Salisbury’s government had backed down too soon for any American show of force. Roosevelt held that only “power, and the willingness and readiness to use it” would make Germany understand the Monroe Doctrine fully. If he could send such a forceful message, it would “round out” Cleveland’s policy nicely.
Few among the President’s callers that morning saw his new globe as anything other than a piece of furniture. Congress was back in town—not the newly elected Fifty-eighth but the same old Fifty-seventh, reconvening for its last winter session. Senators and Representatives paid their usual respects, and declared their usual keen interest in the Message he would be sending them later in the day.
For two and a half hours, Roosevelt pumped hands and exchanged pleasantries. Toward noon, his flow of visitors slackened, as Congressmen and correspondents headed for Capitol Hill. The White House grew quiet. Even Edith and Alice took a carriage to watch the opening ceremonies. Roosevelt remained at his desk. Behind him as he worked, the USS Mayflower dropped down the bright river.
FOR THE NEXT WEEK, he remained closeted in the White House, giving no hint of anxiety about Venezuela. By 4 December, Secretary Moody had authorized a concentration of fifty-three warships—the largest such deployment the Navy had ever seen—compared with twenty-nine Allied vessels. The imbalance signified nothing, of course, since neither armada was contending. Still, Roosevelt had real strength available if he needed it. He knew the historic propensity of blockades toward invasion.
On 7 December, Germany and Britain informed President Castro that they were closing their consulates in Caracas and initiating “pacific” measures to satisfy their claims against him. Admiral Dewey simultaneously took command of the fleet off Culebra, under orders to be ready to move south at an hour’s notice. He began an immediate program of dummy landings along stretches of the Puerto Rican shore that resembled Venezuela’s.
As if toughening himself for the crisis to come, Roosevelt intensified his latest exercise routine, “singlesticks.” Every evening in the residence, he and Leonard Wood donned padded helmets and chest protectors and beat each other like carpets. “We look like Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” the President joked.
General Wood noted in his diary that Roosevelt was too excitable a stick-fighter to remember the rules. “It is almost impossible to get him to come to a guard after having been hit or delivering a blow.” Despite bruised shoulders and swollen wrists, the two old Rough Riders soon graduated to heavy ash rods.
Speak softly and carry a big stick was a West African proverb Roosevelt had tried out once, as Vice President, and memorized as a personal mantra. Perhaps the current situation would enable him to test its effectiveness, starting with the soft speech. “If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; but neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power.”
ON 8 DECEMBER, the German Ambassador, Theodor von Holleben, visited the Executive Office with a party of his compatriots. The appointment was ceremonial. However, it gave Roosevelt a chance to talk to the Ambassador privately, without attracting the attention of reporters. He was adept at drawing callers aside on such occasions, and hissing something forceful through smiling teeth.
The reason for his circumspection was that he had to deal, through von Holleben, with the most dangerous man in the world. Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, loomed clear in his imagination—clearer, perhaps, than if they had actually met. (Roosevelt was too good-natured to be a perceptive judge of people in the flesh.) For several years, even before becoming Vice President, he had been receiving apprehensive reports about the Kaiser from mutual acquaintances. Cecil Spring Rice, for one, saw Wilhelm as an economic and military expansionist, with a “definite plan” to consolidate German interests in South America. General Wood, just back from observing the German Army maneuvers at Potsdam, did not know what to be more impressed with: the Kaiser’s bewitching personality, or his domination of an inhumanly efficient military machine.
Roosevelt the Germanist admired Wilhelm’s finer Teutonic qualities, as he did those of Helmuth Karl von Moltke and Albrecht von Roon. He was also aware of some beguiling similarities between the Kaiser and himself. Only three months separated their respective dates of birth, Wilhelm being the younger man. Physically, they were alike in their burly, grinning virility, their hunting prowess, and their conquest of juvenile disability—in the Kaiser’s case, a withered left arm. They had the same quick nerves, charm, explosive speech, and weakness for moralizing. They were catholic in intellect, encyclopedic in memory. They shared a passion for things military, identifying particularly with sea power.
However, as Roosevelt pointed out, superficial similarities between men or nations accentuate their serious differences. In contrast to his own steely sense of direction, he saw a brilliant waywardness in Wilhelm, as of running mercury. The Kaiser was vain, coarse, romantic, and often foolish. He was xenophobic in general and anti-Semitic in particular, given to hoarse shouts of “Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Gott!” His fits of rage were so violent as to make onlookers sick.
What made Roosevelt most wary was Wilhelm’s inclination toward bejeweled fantasy. “He writes to me pretending that he is a descendant of Frederick the Great! I know better and feel inclined to tell him so.” The Kaiser liked to dress up as Frederick; when he posed for photographs in his hero’s thigh-boots he revealed rather wide hips. Roosevelt, alive to any hint of effeminacy, understood that in negotiating with Wilhelm he must at all times remember the importance of show. It would be foolhardy to humiliate him in the Caribbean. The Kaiser was enough of a man to stand a tough, confidential message—and enough of a woman, presumably, to retreat if it could be made to look glamorous.
ACCORDING TO ROOSEVELT’S later testimony, he spoke to Ambassador von Holleben “with extreme emphasis,” and told him
to tell the Kaiser that I had put Dewey in charge of our fleet to maneuver in West Indian waters; that the world at large should know this merely as a maneuver, and we should strive in every way to appear simply as cooperating with the Germans; but that I regretted to say … that I should be obliged to interfere, by force if necessary, if the Germans took any action which looked like the acquisition of territory in Venezuela or elsewhere along the Caribbean.
The tactfulness of this warning was lost on von Holleben, who doggedly repeated Germany’s official position. His Majesty had no intention to take “permanent” possession of Venezuelan territory. With a touch of sarcasm, Roosevelt said that he was sure Wilhelm felt the same about Kiaochow, which was “merely held by a ninety-nine years lease.”
Again von Holleben failed to react. Roosevelt politely informed him that he would wait ten days for a total disclaimer from Berlin. If none was forthcoming, Admiral Dewey would be ordered south “to observe matters along Venezuela.”
The Ambassador escorted his party out. “You gave that Dutchman something to think about,” said William Loeb, who was doing secretarial duty. But Loeb wondered if von Holleben had the courage to transmit an ultimatum. “I don’t think he will give the Kaiser a correct picture of your attitude.”
THE “PACIFIC” BLOCKADE turned violent the next morning, 9 December. Four Venezuelan gunboats were seized by the Allies, and three of them destroyed by Germany. President Castro, in a panic, proposed that all claims against his country be arbitrated, and asked the United States to intercede for him.
John Hay relayed Castro’s proposal to London and Berlin, while Roosevelt considered the implications of his secret ultimatum to the Kaiser. The sinking of the gunboats struck him as “an act of brutality and useless revenge.” If Der Allmachtige was this willing to lay violent hands on Venezuelan shipping, what price Venezuelan real estate? More than ever, Roosevelt suspected that Germany wanted to establish “a strongly fortified place of arms” near the future Isthmian Canal. He himself was pledged to violence now—unless von Holleben brought him a peaceable message in the nine days remaining.
MORE THAN EIGHT thousand miles away, the only detached units of the United States Navy steamed to a routine rendezvous at Manila. Neither the Pacific nor the Far Eastern Squadron was needed for Caribbean duty. But Roosevelt had never forgotten that, in 1898, it had taken the battleship Oregon sixty-four days to rush from San Francisco to Florida via Cape Horn.
Palpably, between the extremes of his divided fleet, a mirage of locks and water shimmered across Panama.
IN BERLIN, Speck von Sternburg was reporting to Chancellor von Bülow and State Secretary Olaf von Richtoven on his recent visit to America. He cautioned them against “basking in the illusions” of Roosevelt’s extravagant welcome to Prince Heinrich, nine months before. They must be aware of a steady deterioration in United States–German relations.
Expressionless, self-effacing, and cunning, von Sternburg had his own interests in mind. He knew that Roosevelt was uncomfortable with Ambassador von Holleben, and would prefer a more congenial envoy in Washington. “I feel absolutely confident,” he wrote the President afterward, “that a radical change must take place.… Of course I didn’t say a word as regards myself as a candidate.”
Roosevelt did not mind members of his secret du roi advancing themselves, since by doing so they usually advanced American foreign policy. A little farther down in von Sternburg’s letter, he read: “The Venezuelan crisis is causing a considerable stir here.”
There seemed to be a similar stir in London, where St. Loe Strachey was railing in the Spectator against “one of the most amazingly indiscreet alliances ever made with a foreign power.” British popular opinion was generally against shared adventurism. In the United States, newspaper hostility toward Germany rose to such a pitch that von Holleben sent a worried cable to the Wilhelmstrasse.
Von Bülow passed it on to the Kaiser, who scrawled irritatedly in the margin, “Herr Ambassador is over there to take the pulse of the press and to calm it, when necessary, by administering proper treatment.” Wilhelm agreed, however, that Germany should refrain from any more unilateral displays of force. “We will allow our flag to follow the lead of the British.”
The ink on his superscription was scarcely dry when the British Royal Navy obliged off Puerto Cabello. The captain of an armored cruiser, responding to some “insult” to the Union Jack, bombarded the Venezuelan coast, and a German cruiser joined in, heavily damaging two forts.
Roosevelt continued to believe that Germany was “the really formidable party” in the alliance. Sir Arthur Balfour’s government had to find a way out or jeopardize the rapprochement between the two great English-speaking powers. One thing was certain: Britain would declare neutrality in any clash over the Monroe Doctrine.
Sunday, 14 December, dawned gray and bitingly cold in Washington. The White House stood shrouded in weekend quiet. But the clock of war ticked on. Four more such dawns, and Roosevelt’s deadline would expire. Then Theodor von Holleben came to see him.
If Roosevelt expected an answer to his ultimatum of 8 December, he was soon disappointed. Von Holleben was a Diplomat älterer Schule, a sociable old Prussian with a bachelor’s paunch and mild, misty eyes. His booming laugh precluded conversational attack. He preferred to do business in writing, with long delays between dispatch and response. The characteristics of his diplomacy were concern about America’s rise to world power, and what John Hay called “mortal terror of the Kaiser.”
Today, von Holleben seemed interested in talking about only the weather and, of all things, tennis. When he rose to go Roosevelt asked if his government was going to accept the arbitration proposal transmitted by Secretary Hay. The Ambassador said, “No.”
Controlling himself, Roosevelt replied that Kaiser Wilhelm must understand he was “very definitely” threatening war. Von Holleben declined to be a party to such language.
The President said that in that case he would advance his ultimatum by twenty-four hours. Calculating back to 8 December, the deadline would now fall on the seventeenth, rather than the eighteenth. Von Holleben, shaken, insisted that His Majesty would not arbitrate. Roosevelt let him have the last word.
WILLIAM LOEB SAW the Ambassador go, but made no log of his visit. Neither did clerks at the State Department or the German Embassy. It suited everybody concerned that blank paper should obliterate the diplomatic record. Wilhelm was still free to end the crisis without evidence of being coerced.
Von Holleben pondered Roosevelt’s incredible threat. He could transmit it now (if he dared to transmit it at all) only as a matter of extreme urgency. Contrary to von Sternburg’s insinuations, he had long been aware of the rise of anti-Germanism in the United States, to the extent of predicting war, sooner or later, over the Monroe Doctrine. But the Kaiser had scoffed at his qualms. “We will do whatever is necessary for our navy, even if it displeases the Yankees. Never fear!” This ultimatum might well be Rooseveltian bluster. Von Holleben did not want to be dismissed as an alarmist.
But what if the President was serious? Von Holleben decided to consult a German diplomat in New York who knew Roosevelt well—Consul General Karl Bünz. Under cloak of a snowstorm, the Ambassador left town. Late that evening he registered at the Cambridge Hotel, Manhattan.
Sometime during the next twenty-four hours, Bünz assured him that the President was “not bluffing.” Nor was Roosevelt’s short-term strategy flawed. Whatever the worldwide strength of the Kaiser’s Navy, it was currently dispersed. Admiral Dewey was therefore in a position to deal a brutal blow to German prestige in the Caribbean.
As von Holleben struggled with this frightening information, diplomatic strains developed between London and Berlin. Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Secretary, found himself in a difficult position, with King Edward VII expressing annoyance at the Venezuelan entanglement, and the German Ambassador, Count Paul von Metternich, insisting the Kaiser would not arbitrate. Lansdowne wondered querulously if the Allies could at least agree on “the principle of arbitration,” and “perhaps invite the United States” to weigh some of their claims against Venezuela.
This was the first hint that the British government wanted Theodore Roosevelt to help resolve the crisis. His neutrality, not to mention his recent mediation of the great coal strike, recommended him as an arbitrator. But Metternich would not budge.
It was now Tuesday, 16 Dec
ember. Fewer than twenty-four hours remained before Roosevelt’s deadline. In New York, von Holleben went down to Wall Street to check the latest fluctuations of German-American and Latin American opinion. In London, the British Cabinet approved Lord Lansdowne’s proposal to accept arbitration “in principle,” thus driving a wedge into the alliance. In Washington, the Roosevelt Cabinet met in closed session. And in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a fast torpedo boat stood ready to rush any emergency orders to Admiral Dewey.
“Such cables,” Admiral Taylor alerted naval intelligence, “may be written in cipher … and [are] to be considered confidential.” He reminded all staff that “there are many matters connected with the business of the fleet here, which are not a proper subject for discussion.”
After less than an hour in the Cabinet Room, Secretary Moody hurried back to his office with a presidential order. A White House spokesman said that it concerned Christmas visits that the fleet would make to various Caribbean ports. Reporters soon learned that Dewey’s big battleship squadron was headed for Trinidad, only sixty miles from La Guiria. And why was the Navy Department handing out detailed maps of the blockade zone?
Throughout the crisis so far, Roosevelt had pursued a policy of apparent candor and cooperation with the press, issuing regular bulletins about the maneuvers, along with qualified assurances that he was handling the Allies with restraint. “He sees little reason,” the Washington Evening Star noted that afternoon, “to be throwing out unofficial intimations to Germany and England that this country has fixed a deadline, which they must not cross.” The truth or untruth of this statement lay in the adjective unofficial.
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