US breaks off relations with Germany

At two o’clock in the afternoon of 3 February 1917 President Woodrow Wilson stood in the chamber of the House of Representatives before a joint session of Congress and announced that the United States was severing all diplomatic relations with the German Empire. Three minutes earlier the State Department’s counselor, Lester Woolsey, had handed Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff at the German embassy a note from the Secretary of State and passports for the ambassador and his staff. The American ambassador in Berlin, James W. Gerard, was recalled. It was the answer to Germany’s announcement of unrestricted submarine warfare, which Bernstorff had delivered in Washington three days earlier.

Three days of deliberation

Secretary of State Robert Lansing believed from the first moment that a break was the only course. Wilson had already threatened one in April 1916 in the note on the Sussex, and the Germans had then given way, promising not to sink merchant ships without warning and without saving lives. Now they were withdrawing that promise at a few hours’ notice. The President, who only a week earlier had offered the Germans his mediation and spoken of a “peace without victory”, hesitated for a long time. Lansing recorded that on the evening of 31 January Wilson told him he was more and more convinced that “white civilization” and its domination of the world rested largely on America’s ability to keep its strength intact so as to rebuild the ruined nations after the war. For that reason he was ready to do anything to avoid drawing the country into the war. Lansing replied that if the United States did not make good on what it had announced, no nation would take it seriously. Nevertheless, the President told him to prepare a draft note breaking off relations. The next day they talked again, this time with Colonel Edward Mandell House, who had arrived in Washington that morning.

On 2 February the cabinet met from half past two until a quarter to five. According to Lansing’s memorandum, the President gave the impression of resisting a break. He was supported by the Secretary of Labor, William B. Wilson (no relation of the President), and the Postmaster General, Albert Burleson, seemed to lean his way. The other ministers favoured a break, most firmly the Secretary of the Treasury, William Gibbs McAdoo, and the Secretary of Agriculture, David F. Houston. When Lansing argued that lasting peace required the democratisation of all nations and that an Allied victory was in America’s interest, Wilson replied, “I am not so sure of that,” and went on to argue that a draw would probably bring more justice. Some of the ministers were shocked. Lansing thought the President was merely provoking an exchange of arguments and had already made up his mind. At the end of the meeting Wilson read out the draft note, which confined itself to reproaching Germany for its broken promise. In the afternoon he talked on Capitol Hill with Senate leaders, including the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, William J. Stone. On the morning of 3 February he summoned Lansing to the White House and told him that he would hand Bernstorff his passports and recall Gerard, and that at two o’clock he would address Congress.

The speech

Wilson reminded Congress of the Sussex note, the German pledge of 4 May 1916 and the American reservation that respect for the rights of United States citizens could not be made contingent on the conduct of other states. Now Germany had suddenly and without any warning withdrawn its solemn assurance. The government therefore had no alternative consistent with the dignity and honour of the United States but to take the step it had announced in April.

The President did not, however, close the road to peace. “I refuse to believe that it is the intention of the German authorities to do in fact what they have warned us they will feel at liberty to do,” he said. He could not believe that the Germans would destroy American ships and take the lives of American citizens. “Only actual overt acts on their part can make me believe it even now.” If that happened, he would come before Congress again and ask for authority to use any means necessary to protect American seamen and citizens at sea. He insisted that America did not want war: “We are the sincere friends of the German people.” He also expressed his conviction that all neutral governments would act in the same way. That same day the State Department instructed American representatives in neutral countries to inform their governments of the break and to suggest that they take a similar step.

Many American newspapers had demanded a firm stance towards Berlin ever since the submarine campaign was announced, and the country’s largest German-language daily, the New York Staats-Zeitung, on 5 February called on its readers to be loyal to the American flag even if that meant fighting Germany. On the very day Wilson spoke, off the Isles of Scilly, U-53 under Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose sank the American freighter Housatonic, carrying wheat to London. Rose, however, had stopped her with a warning shot, allowed the crew to take to the boats and towed them towards land for an hour and a half. No one was killed, so Washington did not regard it as the “overt act” the President was waiting for.

The ambassadors depart

Bernstorff had expected this turn of events. He later claimed that as early as the morning of 31 January he had ordered the engines of the German ships laid up in American ports since 1914 to be disabled, and that the crews had managed to do so before the vessels were put under guard. The Swiss legation took charge of German interests in the United States. From the moment of the break the embassy was guarded and watched by the police, but friends, as Bernstorff recalled, went on inviting him and his wife to dinner until the end. Preparations for the departure of some 200 Germans, staff of the embassy and consulates with their families, took eleven days. On 14 February Bernstorff sailed from New York on the Danish liner Frederik VIII. Under a safe conduct the British were only to search the ship at Halifax, but they held her there for twelve days.

Gerard did not receive word from Washington at once. On Sunday 4 February, as he sat down to lunch with German guests, someone brought in the midday edition of a Berlin newspaper reporting the break. On Monday, after receiving the official telegram, he asked the Foreign Office for his passports. The Germans, however, kept him in Berlin for almost a week. The embassy’s telegraph, telephone and post were cut off, and Count Adolf von Montgelas explained that there were rumours of Bernstorff being ill-treated and of German ships being confiscated in America. He also demanded that Gerard sign, or obtain permission to sign, an agreement reaffirming the old Prussian–American treaty of 1799 and supplementing it with new clauses, favourable to Germany, on the treatment of each country’s citizens and their property in the event of war. Gerard refused, all the more so as he was not even allowed to send a cipher telegram to Washington. The Spanish embassy took charge of American interests in Germany. On the evening of Saturday 10 February a special train carrying the ambassador and about 120 Americans left the Potsdamer Bahnhof for Switzerland.

Surprise in Berlin

The German leadership had counted on America swallowing the submarine campaign. On the evening of 3 February, before the news from Washington reached Berlin, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and the State Secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, questioned Gerard at length about the mood in America and asked him to help keep the peace. Zimmermann admitted that in the days before 1 February he had often thought of forewarning the ambassador, but knew that he would only say it would end in a break. So they hoped the fait accompli would be accepted, since America wanted peace. The Chancellor also spoke of the great hatred of America in the army and navy, and Gerard cabled that even in the event of war the German military counted on starving England before the United States could do anything. He was also told that on Sunday morning the Reichstag deputy Gustav Stresemann had explained at a meeting of his party why America would do nothing, and that when he finished someone in the hall read out from the midday paper the news that relations had been broken off.

The neutrals

Wilson’s appeal to the neutral states of Europe met with no response. Denmark replied that its position was too different from that of the United States to be compared, and Norway, Sweden and Denmark decided to confine themselves to a joint protest in Berlin. The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland also sent Germany strong protests, but did not break off relations. States within reach of the German army and navy could not afford to do more.

Latin America responded more warmly. The Brazilian foreign minister announced that his country would reject the German note and gave assurances that it would in any case support the position of the United States, because “America must stand together”. On 8 February Brazil declared that it would not recognise the German blockade and would hold Germany responsible for any damage. Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay and Bolivia, among others, also protested, and the governments of several Central American states expressed their sympathy. In Peking the government deliberated over the American appeal for several days and asked the United States minister whether China could count on help and a seat at the peace conference. On 9 February China protested in Berlin and threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Germany if the protest had no effect.

What came next

Wilson still hoped that Germany would not attack American ships. American shipowners, however, preferred to keep them in port rather than risk voyages without insurance or protection. On 26 February the President asked Congress for authority to arm merchant ships. A few days later the American press published the Zimmermann Telegram, and in March submarines sank several American ships. China broke off relations with Germany on 14 March, and on 6 April 1917 the United States declared war on Germany. Brazil broke off relations a few days later.