File No. 763.72119/905

The Minister in Denmark ( Egan ) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]

1453. A prominent Danish publicist and politician returned some ten days ago from Berlin where he went at the invitation of German editors and Socialist leaders. He was present at the recent stormy meeting of the Reichstag.

No true description of this was ever permitted outside of Germany nor appeared in the German or foreign press. He said that it might be likened to the ocean during a hurricane. The Socialist Party leaders stated that Germany had long been promised victories; they had been given, but it was not victories Germany wanted, it was bread. The people neither could nor would stand the conditions of starvation which they were facing. Hope of something better had been too long deferred. If the Princes wished to prolong the fight let them go out in the vanguard of the armies; the people were heartily sick of it. My informant, who knew the Reichstag of old, was aghast at the invectives and threats which were hurled at the immovable ministers. Alone the persistent ringing of the president’s bell brought order and finally the closing of the sitting.

The greatest phenomenon the war has produced is an empire with strong unbroken armies at her frontiers, unweakened and victorious, and within a people broken and entirely dejected. It cannot last, the most sanguine members of the German Socialists said, “possibly six months”—without the Scandinavian supplies less.

He met in Berlin his friend Mr. Andersen of Denmark who had been sent there as well as to England in order to straighten out Danish import and export troubles. At the meeting Mr. Andersen attended,1 which had been called by the Emperor, Ludendorff, Hindenburg, and Ballin were also present, as well as Andersen. Ballin stated that every month that the war now continues meant adding a year to the post-war period when the markets of the world would be closed to Germany. He finished his speech stating that German merchants would no longer tolerate the continuance of the war. The Emperor on Ballin’s seventieth birthday not long ago omitted for the first time for many years to send his good wishes.

Michaelis is not the militarist the foreign press paints him. He would like to lend an ear to the voices of the lower classes but has [Page 276] not the courage. As a result he will shortly have to go as also all the conservative political men now in power. Next spring will see them all substituted by new men.

The foregoing strengthens the belief that the ferment of democracy is working with increasing force within the German Empire. The protests against outside interference which greeted the President’s reply to the Pope were but the natural cry of a threatened bureaucracy rallying around its chief.

American Legation
  1. According to the Legation’s telegram No. 1466, Oct. 23, this conference “happened in June last at which time our informant was also in Berlin.” (File No. 763.72119/8264.)