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Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him
Chapter XXXIV - Germany Capitulates
by Tumulty, Joseph P.
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Germany had begun to weaken, and suddenly aware of the catastrophe that
lay just ahead, changed her chancellor, and called upon the President for
an armistice upon the basis of the Fourteen Points. The explanation of
Germany's attitude in this matter was simply that she knew she was beaten
and she recognized that Wilson was the only hope of a reasonable peace
from the Berlin point of view. Germany professed to be a liberal and was
asking Wilson for the "benefit of clergy."
On the 6th day of October, 1918, the following note from Prince Max of
Baden was delivered to the President by the Secretary of State:
The German Government requests the President of the United States of
America to take steps for the restoration of peace, to notify all
belligerents of this request, and to invite them to delegate
plenipotentiaries for the purpose of taking up negotiations. The
German Government accepts, as a basis for the peace negotiations, the
programme laid down by the President of the United States in his
Message to Congress of January 8,1918, and in his subsequent
pronouncements particularly in his address of September 27, 1918. In
order to avoid further bloodshed, the German Government requests the
President of the United States of America to bring about the immediate
conclusion of a general armistice on land, on water, and in the air.
(Signed) MAX, Prince Of Baden,
Imperial Chancellor.
The President was not surprised when the offer of peace came for on all
sides there was abundant evidence of the decline of Germany and of the
weakening of her morale. The President felt that Germany, being desperate,
it would be possible for him, when she proposed a settlement, like that
proposed by Prince Max, to dictate our own terms, and to insist that
America would have nothing to do with any settlement in which the Kaiser
or his brood should play a leading part. I stated to him that the basis of
our attitude toward Germany should be an insistence, in line with his
speech of September 27, 1918, wherein he said:
We are all agreed that there can be no peace obtained by any kind of
bargain or compromise with the governments of the Central Empires,
because we have dealt with them already and have seen them deal with
other governments that were parties to this struggle, at Brest-Litovsk
and Bucharest. They have convinced us that they were without honour
and do not intend justice. They observe no covenants, accept no
principle but force and their own interest. We cannot come to terms
with them. They have made it impossible. The German people must by
this time be fully aware that we cannot accept the word of those who
forced this war upon us. We do not think the same thoughts or speak
the same language of agreement.
At the time of the receipt of Prince Max's note by the State Department,
on October 5, 1918, the President was in New York, staying at the Waldorf-
Astoria, preparatory to attending a concert given by the Royal Italian
Grenadiers. A message from the Army Intelligence Department, conveyed to
me by General Churchill, at the Knickerbocker Hotel, in New York, where I
was staying, was the first word we had of Germany's desire for an
armistice. General Churchill read me the German proposal over the 'phone
and I carried it to the President, who was in conference with Colonel
House at the Waldorf. The offer of Germany was so frank and unequivocal in
seeming to meet the terms of the President's formal proposals of peace,
that when Colonel House read it to the President, he turned and said:
"This means the end of the war." When I was interrogated as to my opinion,
I replied that, while the German offer of peace seemed to be genuine, in
my opinion no offer from Germany could be considered that bore the
Hohenzollern-Hapsburg brand. For a moment this seemed to irritate the
President, and he said: "But, at least, we are bound to consider in the
most serious way any offer of Germany which is practically an acceptance
of my proposals of peace." There our first discussion regarding the German
peace offer ended.
At the conclusion of this talk I was invited to take dinner with the
President and Colonel House and with the members of the President's
family, but the matter of the note which we had just received weighed so
heavily upon me that my digestive apparatus was not in good working order,
and yet the President was seemingly unmindful of it, and refused to permit
the evening to be interfered with because of the note, attending the
concert and apparently enjoying every minute of the evening, and
applauding the speeches that were made by the gentlemen who addressed us.
After the concert began, I left the Presidential box and, following a
habit I had acquired since coming to the Executive offices, I conferred
with the newspaper men in our party, endeavouring to obtain from them,
without expressing any personal opinion of my own, just how they felt
toward the terms proposed in the Max note. I then called up the State
Department and discussed the note with Mr. Polk, expressing the same
opinion to him that I had already expressed to the President, to the
effect that we could not accept a German offer which came to us under the
auspices of the Hohenzollerns. Upon the conclusion of the concert, we left
the Metropolitan Opera House, I accompanying the President to the Waldorf.
As I took my place in the automobile, the President leaned over to Mrs.
Wilson and whispered to her the news of the receipt of the German note.
Then, turning to me, he said: "Have you had any new reaction on the note
since I last talked with you?" I told him I had not, but that what I had
learned since talking with him earlier in the evening had only confirmed
me in the opinion that I had already expressed, that it would not be right
or safe for us to accept the German proposals. When we arrived at the
Waldorf it was 12:30 A. M. and the President asked me to his rooms, and
there, for an hour and a half, we indulged in a long discussion of the
German offer. As was usual with the President in all these important
matters, his mind was, to use his own phrase, "open and to let."
I emphasized the idea that we could not consider a peace proposal in which
the Kaiser and his brood played a part, and that the only proffer we could
consider must come from the German people themselves; that in his Mexican
policy he had proclaimed the doctrine that no ruler who came to power by
murder or assassination would ever receive the recognition of the United
States; that we must broaden the morality which underlay this policy, and
by our attitude say to the European rulers who started this war, that
guilt is personal and that until they had purged themselves from the
responsibility of war, we could not consider any terms of peace that came
through them.
The next day the President left for Cleveland Dodge's home on the Hudson,
with Colonel House and Doctor Grayson. I remained in New York at the
Knickerbocker Hotel, busily engaged in poring over the newspaper files to
find out what the editorial attitude of the country was toward the German
proposal of peace, and in preparing a brief on the whole matter for the
President's consideration. Before Colonel House left, I again impressed
upon him my view of the note and my conviction that it would be a
disastrous blunder for us to accept it.
The President returned to Washington in the early afternoon, Colonel House
accompanying him. I was eager and anxious to have another talk with him
and was given an opportunity while in the President's compartment in the
train on our way back to Washington. As I walked into the compartment, the
President was conferring with Colonel House, and as I took a seat, the
President asked me if I still felt that the German proposal should be
rejected. I replied, that, if anything, I was stronger in the judgment I
had already expressed. He said: "But it is not an easy matter to turn away
from an offer like this. There is no doubt that the form of it may be open
to objection, but substantially it represents the wishes of the German
people, even though the medium through which it may be conveyed is an
odious and hateful one, but I must make up my own mind on this and I must
not be held off from an acceptance by any feeling of criticism that may
come my way. The gentlemen in the Army who talk about going to Berlin and
taking it by force are foolish. It would cost a million American lives to
accomplish it, and what lies in my thoughts now is this: If we can accept
this offer, the war will be at an end, for Germany cannot begin a new one,
and thus we would save a great deal of bloodshed."
I remember, as I pointed out to him the disappointment of the people were
he to accept the German offer, he said: "If I think it is right to accept
it, I shall do so regardless of consequences. As for myself, I can go down
in a cyclone cellar and write poetry the rest of my days, if necessary."
He called my attention to the fact that John Jay, who negotiated the
famous treaty with Great Britain, was burned in effigy and Alexander
Hamilton was stoned while defending the Jay Treaty on the steps of the
Treasury Building in New York City. I pointed out to him that there was no
comparison between the two situations; that our case was already made up
and that to retreat now and accept this proposal would be to leave intact
the hateful dynasty that had brought on the war.
As was his custom and habit, he was considering all the facts and every
viewpoint before he finally took the inevitable step.
Never before was the bigness of the President shown better than in this
discussion; never was he more open-minded or more anxious to obtain all
the facts in the grave situation with which he was called upon to deal. In
the action upon which his mind was now at work he was not thinking of
himself or of its effect upon his own political fortunes. All through the
discussion one could easily see the passionate desire of the man to bring
this bloody thing of war honourably to an end.
Mr. Edward N. Hurley furnishes me with a characteristic anecdote connected
with a session of the War Conference Board, which Mr. Hurley calls "one of
the most historic conferences ever held at the White House."
"The question," says Mr. Hurley, "was whether the President would be
justified in agreeing to an armistice. Many people throughout the country
were demanding an insistence upon unconditional surrender. Very little
news was coming from abroad." Mr. Hurley says that the President met the
Conference Board with the statement: "Gentlemen, I should like to get an
expression from each man as to what he thinks we should or should not do
regarding an unconditional surrender or an armistice." Mr. Hurley says
that "every man at the meeting except one was in favour of an armistice."
After the President had ascertained the opinpn of each he said in a quiet
way: "I have drawn up a tentative note to Germany which I should like to
submit for your approval." After the paper had been passed Around one
member of the Board said: "Mr. President, I think it would be better
politics if you were to change this paragraph"--indicating a particular
paragraph in the document. The President replied, in what Mr. Hurley calls
"a slow and deliberate manner": "I am not dealing in politics, I am
dealing in human lives."
While the President was engaged in conference with Colonel House, I
addressed a letter to him, as follows:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 8, 1918.
DEAR GOVERNOR:
I do not know what your attitude is toward the late German and
Austrian offers. The record you have made up to this time, however, is
so plain that in my judgment there can be only one answer and that is
an absolute and unqualified rejection of these proposals.
There is no safer counsellor in the country than the Springfield
Republican. Speaking of the peace programme of the new German
Chancellor, the Republican says:
"It [referring to the offer of Prince Max] does not meet the minimum
requirements for the opening of negotiations. These have been
variously stated, but in general may be reduced to restitution,
reparation and guarantees. Under none of these heads has Germany yet
come even measurably near meeting the plain requirements of the
Allies, which have not been reduced in defeat and will not be
increased with victory. Take, for example, the question of Belgium,
now that Germany knows it cannot be kept, it makes a merit of giving
it up, but beyond that Prince Maximilian is not authorized more than
to say that 'an effort shall also be made to reach an understanding on
the question of indemnity'.... What is needed first of all from
Germany is a clear, specific and binding pledge in regard to the
essential preliminaries. It does not advance matters an inch for the
Chancellor, like Baron Burian, to offer to take President Wilson's
points as a 'basis' for negotiations, They will make a first-rate
basis, but only when Germany has offered definite preliminary
guarantees."
I beg to call your attention to another editorial in the Springfield
Republican, entitled "Why Germany Must Surrender," hereto attached.
Speaking of Germany's promises, I mention still another editorial from
the Springfield Republican which concludes by saying, "Even Mr.
Wilson is not so simple-minded as the Kaiser may once have thought him
to be."
It is the hand of Prussianism which offers this peace to America. As
long ago as last June you exposed the hollowness of peace offered
under such conditions as are now set forth by the German Chancellor.
Referring to the German Government, you said: "It wishes to close its
bargain before it is too late and it has little left to offer for the
pound of flesh it will demand."
In your speech of September 27th, you said:
"We are all agreed that there can be no peace obtained by any kind of
bargain or compromise with the governments of the Central Empires,
because we have dealt with them already and have seen them deal with
other governments that were parties to this struggle, at Brest-Litovsk
and Bucharest. They have convinced us that they were without honour
and do not intend justice. They observe no covenants, accept no
principle but force and their own interest We cannot 'come to terms'
with them. They have made it impossible. The German people must by
this time be fully aware that we cannot accept the word of those who
forced this war upon us. We do not think the same thoughts or speak
the same language of agreement." Certainly, the German people are not
speaking through the German Chancellor. It is the Kaiser himself. He
foresees the end and will not admit it. He is still able to dictate
conditions, for, in the statement which appeared in the papers
yesterday, he said: "It will only be an honourable peace for which we
extend our hand."
The other day you said: "We cannot accept the word of those who forced
this war upon us." If this were true then, how can we accept this
offer now? Certainly nothing has happened since that speech that has
changed the character of those in authority in Germany. Defeat has not
chastened Germany in the least. The tale of their retreat is still a
tale of savagery, for they have devastated the country and carried off
the inhabitants; burned churches, looted homes, wreaking upon the
advancing Allies every form of vengeance that cruelty can suggest.
In my opinion, your acceptance of this offer will be disastrous, for
the Central Powers have made its acceptance impossible by their
faithlessness.
TUMULTY.
While the President was conferring with Secretaries Lansing, Daniels,
Baker, and Colonel House, I addressed the following letter to President
Wilson and a practically identic letter to Colonel House:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
7 October, 1918.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
Since I returned, every bit of information that comes to me is along
one line and that is, that an agreement in which the Kaiser is to play
the smallest part will be looked upon with grave suspicion and I
believe its results will be disastrous. In my opinion, it will result
in the election of a Republican House and the weakening, if not
impairing of your influence throughout the world. I am not on the
inside and so I do not know, but I am certain that Lloyd George and
Clemenceau will take full advantage of this opportunity in declaring
that, so far as they are concerned, they are not going to sit down at
the Council Table with William the Second, and you may be put in a
position before the world, by your acceptance of these conditions, of
seeming to be sympathetic with the Kaiser and his brood.
May not Germany be succeeding in splitting the Allies by this offer,
just as Talleyrand succeeded, at the Congress of Vienna, in splitting
the allies who had been victorious over Napoleon? You cannot blot out
the record you have made in your speeches, which in every word and
line showed a distrust of this particular autocracy, with which you
are now asked to deal. Have you considered the possibility that as
soon as Germany read your New York speech of September 27th, knowing,
as they did, that it was neither palatable to the Allies nor in
accordance with that which they had hitherto stood for, promptly
accepted your attitude as a means of dividing the Entente at a
critical moment and robbing her of the benefits of the military
triumph? Did not Talleyrand do the very same thing to them, as the
representative of defeated France, when he sided with Russia and
Prussia as against England and thus made possible the return of
Napoleon?
I realize the great responsibility that rests upon the President. In
any other matter, not so vital as this, you could be wrong and time
would correct it, but in a thing like this, when you are dealing with
a question which goes to the very depths of international action and
world progress, you are at the parting of the ways. If you wish to
erect a great structure of peace, you must be sure and certain that
every brick in it, that every ounce of cement that goes in it is solid
and lasting, and above all, you must preserve your prestige for the
bigger moments to come.
Sincerely,
TUMULTY
Upon the conclusion of the conference, I had a talk with Colonel House and
Secretaries Daniels, Lansing, and Baker, and again urged the necessity of
a refusal on the part of the President to accept the German peace terms.
Secretary Lansing informed me that the President had read my letter to the
conference and then said: "We will all be satisfied with the action the
President takes in this matter."
While at luncheon that afternoon, the President sent for me to come to the
White House. I found him in conference with Secretary Lansing, Colonel
House, and Mr. Polk. The German reply was discussed and I was happy when I
found that it was a refusal on the part of the President to accept the
German proposal.
The gist of the President's reply was a demand from him of evidence of a
true conversion on the part of Germany, and an inquiry on the part of the
President in these words:
"Does the Imperial Chancellor mean that the German Government accepts the
Fourteen Points?" "Do the military men of Germany agree to withdraw all
their armies from occupied territories?", and finally: "The President
wishes to know whether the Chancellor speaks for the old group who have
conducted the war, or does he speak for the liberated peoples of Germany?"
Commenting upon the receipt of the President's reply to the Germans, André
Tardieu says:
It is a brief reply which throws the recipients into consternation
they cannot conceal. No conversation is possible, declares the
President, either on peace or on an armistice until preliminary
guarantees shall have been furnished. These are the acceptation pure
and simple of the bases of peace laid down on January 8, 1918, and in
the President's subsequent addresses; the certainty that the
Chancellor does not speak only in the names of the constituted
authorities who so far have been responsible for the conduct of the
war; the evacuation of all invaded territories. The President will
transmit no communication to his associates before having received
full satisfaction on these three points.
What must be the thought of those partisans in America who were crying out
against the preliminary course of the President in dealing with Germany,
who read this paragraph from Tardieu's book as to the impressions made in
France and Germany by the notes which the President from week to week
addressed to the Germans with reference to the Armistice?
Again Tardieu says:
Then comes the thunderbolt. President Wilson refuses to fall into the
trap and, crossing swords in earnest, presses his attack to the utmost
in the note of October 14. A mixed commission for evacuation? No!
These are matters which like the Armistice itself "must be left to the
judgment and advice of the military advisers of the Allied and
Associated Governments." Besides no armistice is possible if it does
not furnish "absolutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of the
maintenance of the present military supremacy of the armies of the
United States and of its allies." Besides, no armistice "so long as
the armed forces of Germany continue the illegal and inhuman practices
which they still persist in." Finally, no armistice so long as the
German nation shall be in the hands of military power which has
disturbed the peace of the world. As to Austria-Hungary, Germany has
no interest therein and the President will reply directly. In a single
page the whole poor scaffolding of the German Great General Staff is
overthrown. The Armistice and peace are not to be the means of
delaying a disaster and of preparing revenge. On the main question
itself the reply must be Yes or No!
In the books of Ludendorff and Hindenburg we see the shattering effect of
the President's answer upon the German military mind. Whatever
misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the President's position there
might be in his own country, whatever false rumours spread by party malice
to the effect that he had entered into negotiations with Germany without
the knowledge of the Allies and was imposing "soft" terms on Germany to
prevent a march to Berlin, the German commanders were under no illusions.
They knew that the President meant capitulation and that in his demand he
had the sanction of his European associates.
Says Ludendorff:
This time he made it quite clear that the Armistice conditions must be
such as to make it impossible for Germany to resume hostilities and to
give the powers allied against her unlimited power to settle
themselves the details of the peace accepted by Germany. In my view,
there could no longer be doubt in any mind that we must continue the
fight.
Said Hindenburg in an order "for the information of all troops," an order
never promulgated:
He [Wilson] will negotiate with Germany for peace only if she concedes
all the demands of America's allies as to the internal constitutional
arrangements of Germany.... Wilson's answer is a demand for
unconditional surrender. It is thus unacceptable to us soldiers.
In André Tardieu's book we read that from October 5th, the day when
Germany first asked for an armistice, President Wilson remained in daily
contact with the European governments, and that the American Government
was in favour of writing into the Armistice harsher terms than the Allies
thought it wise to propose to the Germans. It will be recalled that the
popular cry at the time was "On to Berlin!" and an urgent demand upon the
part of the enemies of the President on Capitol Hill that he should stand
pat for an unconditional surrender from Germany; that there should be no
soft peace or compromise with Germany, and that we should send our
soldiers to Berlin. At the time we discussed this attitude of mind of
certain men on the Hill, the President said: "How utterly foolish this is!
Of course, some of our so-called military leaders, for propaganda purposes
only, are saying that it would be more advantageous for us to decline the
offer of Germany and to go to Berlin. They do not, however, give our
people any estimate of the cost in blood and money to consummate this
enterprise."
The story was also industriously circulated that Marshal Foch was
demurring to any proposition for a settlement with Germany.
It appears now that in the negotiations for the Armistice Colonel House,
representing the President's point of view in this vital matter, asked
this fundamental question of Foch: "Will you tell us, Marshal, purely from
a military point of view and without regard to any other condition,
whether you would prefer the Germans to reject or sign the Armistice as
outlined here?" Marshal Foch replied: "The only aim of war is to obtain
results. If the Germans sign an armistice now upon the general lines we
have just determined, we shall have obtained the results we asked. Our
aims being accomplished, no one has the right to shed another drop of
blood."
It was said at the time that the President was forcing settlement upon the
military leaders of the Allies. General Foch disposed of this by saying,
in answer to a question by Colonel House and Lloyd George: "The conditions
laid down by your military leaders are the very conditions which we ought
to and could impose after the success of our further operations, so that
if the Germans accept them now, it is useless to go on fighting."
It was all over, and the protagonist of the grand climax of the huge drama
was Woodrow Wilson, the accepted spokesman of the Allies, the Nemesis of
the Central Powers, who by first isolating them through his moral appeal
to the neutral world was now standing before them as the stern monitor,
demanding that they settle not on their terms, but on his terms, which the
Allies had accepted as their terms.
I shall never forget how happy he looked on the night of the Armistice
when the throngs surged through Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, and
he, unable to remain indoors, had come to the White House gates to look
on, in his face a glow of satisfaction of one who realizes that he has
fought for a principle and won. In his countenance there was an expression
not so much of triumph as of vindication.
As a light ending to a heavy matter, I may say here that when the
Armistice terms were finally accepted, the President said: "Well, Tumulty,
the war's over, and I feel like the Confederate soldier General John B.
Gordon used to tell of, soliloquizing on a long, hard march, during the
Civil War: 'I love my country and I am fightin' for my country, but if
this war ever ends, I'll be dad-burned if I ever love another country.'"
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