100 Years Ago - the U.S.

EN ROUTE FOR EUROPEAN WATERS:

U.S. Marines marching to join their ship.

ARRIVAL OF THE U.S. STEAMER "ORLEANS " AT BORDEAUX: THE CAPTAIN SALUTES THE WAITING CROWD.

The" Orleans" and the" Rocbester" (next page) left New York Feb. 10, 1917, for Bordeaux in defiance of -Germany's threat to sink neutral shipping. Both ships

were enthusiastically welcomed in France.

ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT IN FRANCE

THE GERMAN LINERS "PRINZ EITEL FRIEDRICH" AND "KONIG WILHELM 11" UNDER GUARD IN NEW YORK HARBOUR.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/through-the-barred-zone-lnq99nsbd?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1475482

Through the ‘barred’ zone

The skipper of the Orleans was tremendously surprised to find that he and his crew were regarded as heroes and that Bordeaux had prepared a civic reception and luncheon at the Hotel de Ville

February 28, 1917

Bordeaux, Feb 27. The arrival of the American steamer, Orleans here has been awaited with the greatest interest. She left just before the Rochester, and the fate of the two vessels in their voyage across the prohibited French waters has been looked upon as a trial of the German blockade.
The Orleans bore her name and that of her port, New York, in large letters along her whole length, framed in the Stars and Stripes. She flew the American flag throughout the journey; she carried no contraband, and had a cosmopolitan crew of neutrals - some Americans, Swedes, Norwegians, a Chilean, a Haytian, an Argentine, a Greek, and a Dutchman - on board, so that, had the Orleans been torpedoed, the Germans would have received, at any rate, a diplomatic Note from most of the neutral States of the world.
I went on board the Orleans at Pauillac while she was on her way up the river to Bordeaux; her skipper, Mr Tucker, by no means shared the excitement which his journey aroused here, and he was, no doubt, tremendously surprised to find that he and his crew were regarded as heroes and that Bordeaux had prepared a civic reception and luncheon at the Hotel de Ville and a gala performance at the theatre in their honour.
Mr Allen D Tucker had adopted the much more commonplace view that his journey was eminently reasonable and completely dull. He said: “I left New York on February 10, and took the ordinary traffic route, which I never left in spite of bad weather. The voyage was absolutely normal. I saw not a single trace of a submarine during the three days I was in the ‘blockaded’ zone. Although opinions in New York were divided as to where our journey was really going to end, never at any time did I think that we would, or could be torpedoed [Mr Tucker is evidently not an ardent reader of the German wireless]. The ship is a merchant ship, and not a warship. The United States are not at war with Germany. There was therefore no reason for us to be armed or to fear attack. I only did as I was told in taking the Orleans from New York to Bordeaux. The voyage was in no way a challenge.”
At the mouth of the Garonne a French patrol vessel, which hoisted a big flag with “Welcome” on it, gave the Orleans a foretaste of the enthusiastic reception awaiting her at Bordeaux, where all the dignitaries of the city gathered at the quay side.

The Prefect of the Gironde, in welcoming the Orleans, said: “Your voyage here is a courageous act, the importance of which is evident to all. America has risen up against the final outrage of our enemies, and by your fine action you have inflicted a positive defeat on the modern barbarians. That is why we greet you with enthusiasm.”

By the time their luncheon was over each sailor of the Orleans was probably beginning to wonder whether he might not be a hero, malgre lui.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mr-wilsons-war-policy-lr63h7sqt?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1475482

Mr Wilson’s War Policy

The cause in which America draws the sword and the grounds on which her President justifies the momentous step that he has taken are auguries that the final outcome will be for the happiness and for the welfare of mankind

April 4, 1917

The Old World and the New are ringing with the speech in which President Wilson has called upon Congress to declare that Germany has made war upon the United States. All men may well be filled with an event which is certain to influence their destinies on both sides of the Atlantic for generations to come. None greater, except the war itself, has happened since the French Revolution shattered the traditions of feudalism in Europe.
The wisest of thinkers must shrink from any attempt to forecast the ultimate effects upon both worlds of intervention by America in a great European struggle. We can dimly see that, from England and France to the distant borders of the new Russia in the heart of Asia, it must profoundly influence, not only the policies and the material interests of all states and peoples, but the feelings and the thoughts upon which their national life depends. We can see, but again darkly, that it is not less certain to work immense changes in the same fields amongst the nations of both Americas, and, first and above all, amongst the citizens of the United States. How these mighty forces will act and react upon the national factors in what now becomes, in a new sense and, with a new reality, our common civilization, no man of sense will venture to surmise.
The cause in which America draws the sword and the grounds on which her President justifies the momentous step that he has taken are auguries that the final outcome will be for the happiness and for the welfare of mankind. That is the high aim which Mr Wilson has not shrunk from proposing to the peace-loving people whom the Germans have vainly imagined to be a nation of materialists, sunk in the pursuit of degraded pleasures and of sordid gains. We doubt if in all history a great community have ever been summoned to war on grounds so largely ideal.
Mr Wilson is indeed defending American commerce, but it is not to prevent, and still less to avenge, the German attacks upon this commerce that he bids his countrymen make war. He summons them to uphold American rights, but to uphold them as rights that belong to all mankind, and because it is only by vindicating them. that the foundations can be laid for the fabric of universal peace which he would help to rear. The goal may be remote; it may even be deemed too bright and glorious for attainment in this imperfect world; but Mr Wilson proves by setting it before them, his faith in the profound idealism of the American people.
The President’s speech is closely reasoned and abounds in telling phrases which will not readily be forgotten. His argument against the legality of submarine “ruthlessness” has been developed in his Notes to Germany, and it remains unanswered and unanswerable. He brands the German practice as a “challenge to all mankind”, he describes German submarines as “in effect outlaws”, and he accepts the contention of the Allies that they must be “dealt with at sight”. The Germans not only deny the rights of neutrals to defend themselves against these treacherous assailants - which have just destroyed a large American merchantman - but they have actually intimated to America that the armed guards she has stationed in her ships are liable to the doom of Captain Fryatt and may be treated as pirates.

That challenge Mr Wilson takes up. He has gone, he feels, to the extreme limit of patience, under provocation and wrong without a parallel. The time, he sees, has come when the choice for his country lay between submission to the arrogance of Prussian “militarism” and war. He has chosen the path of right and of honour, and he knows that with one accord the nation will follow him.

The means which he invites Congress to sanction for the conduct of the struggle are probably the best which could be chosen. They include “the utmost practical cooperation in council” with the Allies and an extension to them of “the most liberal financial credits”, together with the full equipment of the Navy and the raising of a land force. upon the principle of universal service.
He is very anxious to make the motives and the objects of America clear to all men. The gist of his contention is that the continued existence of the Prussian military autocracy is incompatible with the peace of the world, and that it must be ended. In other words, he accepts and amplifies the view which we took at the very beginning of the war, and which the then Prime Minister uttered at the Guildhall banquet that followed its outbreak.
Neutrality, Mr Wilson declares, is impossible where the peace of the world is concerned, and to that peace “the existence of autocratic Governments, backed by organized force” is a perpetual menace. The “Prussian autocracy” is such a Government, and has acted towards America as such Governments do act towards neutrals they dislike. It has instigated, supported, and directed, through its accredited agents criminal plots on the soil of the United States; it has treated its promises as mere words and its “obligations as scraps of paper.” How are the democracies of the world, honestly bent upon peace and upon just dealing, to believe that “this natural foe to liberty” will honestly cooperate with them?
No such Government, Mr Wilson proclaims, could be trusted to keep faith within the partnership of democratic peoples on which he builds his hopes for the future of humanity. It would always be “lying in wait” to work its own ends to the common ruin.
The new Russia is a fitting member for such a partnership, and Mr Wilson very earnestly and, very eagerly records his hope that one day America may be able to renew her sincere friendship with the German people as another. With them, he protests, she has no quarrel. He professes to look upon them as the innocent dupes and victims of an irresponsible Government, “running amok”.
That view, like his attitude towards Austria, is probably politic, but it makes it necessary to ignore a mass of awkward evidence. It does not, however, weaken his resolve to spend the whole force of the American people “to check and nullify the pretensions and the powers” of the German Government.
In the conviction that civilisation is at stake, that right is more precious than present peace, and that the fight before her is a fight for “the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples - the German peoples included” - the President of the United States bids his country welcome the day when America is “privileged to spend her blood and might for the principles that gave her birth”. We share his confidence that she will echo with him the words of the great reformer before his judges, and declare that in this cause “she can no other”.


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/seizure-of-german-ships-3f262n6vr?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1475482

Seizure of German ships

An official announcement issued from Washington states that the vessels are requisitioned for the period of the war

April 7, 1917

New York, April 6. At 3.30 this morning the collectors of the ports where German ships have been lying up proceeded to take possession of the vessels. They had awaited the passing of the war resolution before taking action. At Hoboken guards removed the crews of the vessels, deprived them of their firearms, and had them conveyed on tugs to Ellis Island. On the other side of the river similar scenes were enacted.
Many of the sailors claimed to be United States citizens, but all without exception were taken into custody. At Boston, Baltimore, New London, Philadelphia, and New Orleans the German ships were seized in the same quiet fashion. The Willehad, a steamer of 4,700 tons, was found to be practically undamaged at New London, where it had been moored since last summer, when it was used as a supply ship for the submarine Deutschland.
By noon the United States was in possession of half a million of German tonnage. The work of repairing the machinery will be immediately begun. An official announcement issued from Washington states that the vessels are requisitioned for the period of the war. After the war is over the United States Government may possibly pay for their use, but Germany is given plainly to understand that if her submarines torpedo any of them while engaged in American service she will forfeit all claim for compensation.
As for the old treaties with Prussia, the Government view is that the terms of those treaties do not cover the case of interned ships, inasmuch as they are German Government property, and their crews are in German Government service.