4168 HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA
necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of the
settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged or
any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable combination of nations, could face or withstand it. If the peace presently to
be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the organized major
force of mankind."
If there were any doubts in our minds as to which of the great alliances
was the more in sympathy with these ideals, it was removed by the popular
response abroad to this address of the President. For while exception was
taken to some parts of it in Britain and France, it was plain that so far as
the peoples of the Entente were concerned the President had been amply
justified in stating that he spoke for all forward-looking, liberal-minded
men and women. It was not so in Germany. The people there who could
be reached, and whose hearts were stirred by this enunciation of the principles of a people's peace, were too few or too oppressed to make their voices
heard in the councils of their nation. Already, on January 16, 1917, unknown
to the people of Germany, Herr Zimmerman, their Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, had secretly dispatched a note to their minister in Mexico, informing
him of the German intention to repudiate the Sussex pledge and instructing
him to offer to the Mexican Government New Mexico and Arizona, if Mexico
would join with Japan in attacking the United States.
In the new year of 1917, as through our acceptance of world responsibilities so plainly indicated in the President's utterances in regard to a league
of nations, we felt ourselves now drawing nearer to a full accord with the
powers of the Entente; and as on the other hand we found ourselves more
and more outraged at the German Government's methods of conducting
warfare, and their brutal treatment of people in their conquered lands;
as we more and more uncovered their hostile intrigues against the peace of
the New World; and above all, as the sinister and anti-democratic ideals of
their ruling class became manifest in their maneuvers for a peace of conquest the Imperial German Government abruptly threw aside the mask.
On the last day of January, 1917, Count Bernstorff handed to Mr. Lansing
a note in which his Government announced its purpose to intensify and
render more ruthless the operations of their submarines at sea, in a manner
against which our Government had protested from the beginning. The
German Chancellor also stated before the Imperial Diet that the reason this
ruthless policy had not been earlier employed was simply because the Imperial
Government had not then been ready to act. In brief, under the guise of
friendship and the cloak of false promises, it had been preparing this attack.