File No. 763.72115/2578
The Chargé in Germany (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 24, 10 p. m.]
4636. Referring to my 4635, November 22, 7 p. m.1 In my interview with the Chancellor this afternoon regarding Belgian enforced labor, which lasted for nearly an hour, he first listened to my informal representations, taking notes of the various suggested points of amelioration, which he promised to answer within a few days, and then gave a general statement of the reasons which had caused the adoption of the policy, namely, that there were 600,000 unemployed in Belgium who were a source of concern to the German authorities, and that since England had prevented the importation of raw material, there was no sufficient industry to occupy these unemployed, in their own country. He stated that his attitude coincided in principle with that of Governor General von Bissing, as expressed in the latter’s interview with the correspondent of the New York Times cabled to that paper about November 14.
After expressing his appreciation of American relief work in Belgium,, the Chancellor immediately turned the conversation towards the question of peace, first emphasizing informal and unobjectionable [?] nature of his remarks. He said that this question of Belgian enforced labor would never have arisen if his suggestions that Germany desired peace, expressed in the Reichstag last December, almost a year ago, and repeated since then to Mr. Gerard, Colonel House, and in various speeches and interviews, had been taken up abroad. England and France had replied that this was no time to talk of peace. He said that it was not true, as stated in England and France, that he had made conditions. If his suggestions that Germany wanted peace should be continually ignored, Germany would be forced in self-defense to adopt hard measures, but this would not be Germany’s fault. Germany had been ready for peace for a year and was therefore not guilty of the continued slaughter. This he repeated several times in different words. He said: “What do these difficulties in Belgium matter compared to the hecatomb of lives lost on the Somme since last July?”
He then asked me about sentiment in America and told me that thinking men in Germany were pleased at President Wilson’s reelection. I spoke about the concern that the submarine warfare was causing in the United States, to which he replied emphatically that no change of policy was contemplated by the German Government, that the Admiralty had no intention whatever of violating the assurances [Page 69] given to our Government last spring, and that the strictest possible orders had been issued by the Emperor himself that these assurances should be respected. On my mentioning the case of the Marina and other cases of apparently illegitimate sinkings, he said that the very nature of war must necessarily involve occasional exceptions and accidents, but he touched only on the case of the Arabia, which he said he understood was carrying troops, to which I said I had been informed that there were women and children passengers on board. In this connection he spoke with bitterness of the useless slaughter of women and children by bombs from French aeroplanes dropped in Karlsruhe, Munich, and other unfortified places, which slaughter the French themselves had doubtless not wished or intended. He then went on to speak of the opposition of jingo newspapers and politicians with which he had to contend in Germany.
During all of this talk I avoided argument. The Chancellor gave an impression of great weariness and sadness and discouragement at the failure of his peace suggestions to bear fruit, and I could not fail to feel, although not directly expressed, his clearly intimated disappointment that the United States had not taken steps leading towards peace.