The Infamous Sabotage Order against the U.S. in 1915

On January 6, 1915 the Imperial German Admiralty requested that the military and naval attachés in Washington, Franz von Papen and Karl Boy-Ed respectively, initiate sabotage in the United States and Canada. This request only surfaced as a memorandum in the Imperial Foreign Office. Initially, the Admiralty envisioned the Irish nationalists to conduct sabotage operations in the U.S. This understanding resulted from an agreement between Sir Roger Casement and the German government. Berlin had agreed to support an Irish uprising against England with funding, arms, and ammunition. In addition, Germany had agreed to recognize an Irish state after the war. Casement in return committed to support German efforts of stopping munitions production and shipments in the United States. The Foreign Office subsequently sent a formal sabotage order to the Chief of the Political Section of the Imperial General Staff, Section IIIB, Rudolf Nadolny, for transmission to the United States on January 23.

This order specified three members of the Irish resistance movement in the United States as resources for contracting sabotage agents. The order reached Franz von Papen, the German military attaché in the United States, on January 24. This document, which surfaced after the war, would have grave consequences for Germany. In a mixed claims commission, that Germany and the United States set up after the war to settle claims resulting from Germany’s actions between 1914 and 1919, German lawyers desperately tried to deny the existence of a clandestine war before the American entry into the conflict. Nadolny, himself a lawyer and reserve officer who became German ambassador to Persia later in the war, would join his superiors as well as Franz von Papen for decades in the categorical denial that this directive dated January 24, 1915 was binding or had had any impact.

From the Acting General Staff of the Army, Section IIIB      Berlin, January 24, 1915

– Secret

 

To the Foreign Office, Berlin.

It is humbly requested that the following telegram is transmitted in code to the Imperial Embassy in Washington:

‘For military attaché. To find suitable personnel for sabotage in the United States and Canada inquire with the following persons:

1)    Joseph Mac Garrity [sic], 5412 Springfield Philadelphia, Pa.,

2)    John P. Keating, Maryland Avenue Chicago,

3)    Jeremia [sic] O’Leary, Park row [sic], New York. No. 1 and 2 completely reliable and discreet, No. 3 reliable, not always discreet. Persons have been named by Sir Roger Casement.

In the United States sabotage can cover all kinds of factories for military supplies; railroads, dams, bridges there cannot be touched. Embassy can under no circumstances be compromised, neither can Irish-German propaganda.

Assistant chief of the General Staff

 Nadolny

If there were any doubts as to the authenticity and meaning of the directive, these can quickly be dispelled with periodic reports from von Papen back to Nadolny. Bearing Nadolny’s signature as the recipient the military attaché provided updates to his efforts. Von Papen wrote in a secret telegram on March 17, 1915, “Sabotage against factories over here is making little progress, since all factories are guarded by hundreds of secret agents and all German-American and Irish workers have been fired… Steamer Touraine has regrettably arrived with munitions and 335 machine guns. Signed Papen” The head of the American section of the Imperial Foreign Office, Adolf Count Montgelas, scribbled on the telegram document numbers of three other related reports. Heinrich Albert, the chief of the Secret War Council in New York, transmitted a cable to Secretary of the Interior Clemens von Delbrück on April 20 1915, in which he clearly referred to the implementation of the sabotage order:

As your Excellency knows, I have supported the military attaché, Mr. von Papen, in the handling of munitions questions. Upon submitting our last proposal via telegraph (cable No. 479) we received the order to proceed with respect to preventing or restricting of the exportation of munitions from the United States. The order said: ‘Fully agree with your proposal’ and has been interpreted by us [the Secret War Council], that we are not only to tie up production through contracts in a specific sense, but also take all other [emphasis by author] necessary measures to reach the envisioned goal. With respect to the latter I have undertaken a series of steps under the guidance of Exzellenz [Excellency] Dernburg, which for understandable reasons I cannot put into writing.

Thus the sabotage order was neither a loose directive nor anything that the officials in New York simply ignored, as Nadolny and von Papen’s testimony before the Mixed Claims Commission wanted to spin it in later years. At least three departments, War (where the order originated), Interior (where it was funded in the United States), and the Foreign Office (as Count Montgelas’ signature documents) had knowledge of the order. In extension, Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg and the Kaiser must have known about it, even if they did not specifically approve it. Ringing the bell for a new round of relations between the United States and Germany, the order was immediately implemented, funded, and acted upon. Different from orders to injure Canada from U.S. soil or to supply the German fleet from U.S. harbors under false manifests, by all international standards, the sabotage order of January 24 constituted the authorization of deliberate acts of war against the United States.

A Decision with Grave Consequences: Arnold Krumm-Heller and the Demise of Pancho Villa

In early January 1915, one hundred years ago almost to the day, the German minister to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt, dispatched the secret agent Arnold Krumm-Heller to Pancho Villa. The Imperial German government had decided to offer military advisers to the two revolutionary factions, and supplying them with arms and munitions from the U.S., while at the same time supporting Venustiano Carranza in his quest to consolidate his steady march to supremacy in Mexico. Fanning the flames of the revolution was supposed to keep the United States government focused on Mexico rather than Europe where Germany fought a desperate war on two fronts. 

Arnold Krumm-Heller: Medical Doctor, Revolutionary, German Spy

Villa knew Krumm-Heller, who had been President Francisco Madero's personal doctor and spiritual adviser in 1911 and 1912. After Madero's demise in the Decena Tragica, Krumm-Heller joined the Carranza camp, which at that time included Villa's faction. However, in the spring of 1915 serious rifts had developed between Carranza and Villa. As a result, Villa saw Krumm-Heller's entreaty with more than just casual suspicion. Had Carranza dispatched Krumm-Heller as a military spy? Villa not only rejected him, but asked the messenger who submitted Krumm-Heller’s offer to tell him, “I give him [Krumm-Heller] 24 hours to get out of my country. If he is found here after that I will have him shot.”

The German agent took his military advisers and joined the forces of Alvaro Obregon, a loyal Carranza general. Within months, the German instructors taught Obregon the newest techniques from the European war. Frontal attack, being the mainstay of Villa's military tactics, could be stopped with elaborate trenches, the use of barbed wire and carefully placed machine gun positions. The first major encounter between Villa and Obregon's forces occurred at Celaya in April 1915. Obregon and his advisers had carefully chosen the battlefield and constructed an impenetrable bulwark against frontal cavalry assaults. Against the advice of Felipe Angeles, his most important military strategist and general, Villa sent wave after wave of cavalry against the entrenched forces of Obregon. After brutal fighting and heavy casualties, running low on ammunition, Villa retreated. Two weeks later, after resupplying and regrouping, the two armies clashed again. In desperate fighting, Obregon's forces managed to hold back the attaching Villistas.

Throughout both battles, Krumm-Heller and his German military staff observed the battlefield from a tent on high ground and gave Obregon tactical advice. However, early in the second battle artillery shrapnel severed Obregon's right arm. Laying in a tent in agony with his staff desperately trying to prevent their commander from committing suicide, Obregon's injury threatened to unravel the Constitutionalist lines. A few days after the battle, a reporter of the Hearst newspaper empire handed a report from Captain Juan Rosales, a Carranzista living in El Paso, to the Bureau of Investigation:

“General Obregón had his arm shot off early in the fifth, and then Krum [sic] Heller took charge. He had five German officers with him. None of them went into the field, but as every Mexican officer had been instructed by Obregón to obey Heller, he and his Germans sat in a little tent away from the firing line and made maps. On several occasions they rode out to hills and looked at everything through their field glasses. Then they would return to their tent. I was attached to Col. Heller’s staff. Late that night Col. Heller sent for every Carranzista officer. Some of them regarded them as foolish and threatened to disobey, but Heller again produced an order signed by General Obregón commanding every Carranzista officer to obey him (Heller) [.] That settled the matter and the fight soon began. It did not last long. Villa was whipped and then retreated. Heller gave more instructions and our army advanced. Villas [sic] was whipped again and retreated. Heller again followed him and whipped him again. This was the end if Villa’s army.”

Alvaro Obregon after the Second Battle of Celaya

Krumm-Heller remained with Carranza in Mexico until 1916, then became military attache for Mexico in Berlin. After Celaya, Villa's chief military adviser Felipe Angeles left for the United States. Felix Sommerfeld, a German naval intelligence agent on Villa's staff funneled German funds to Villa to purchase more arms and munitions though 1915. By the fall, Villa's army, battered and decimated, fought a last stand in Sonora which it lost. Villa took to the hills in December 1915. The proud Division of the North, at one time counting over 40,000 men, disbanded.  

More on the career of Arnold Krumm-Heller at the 2015 Conference on Mariano Azuela and the Novel of the Mexican Revolution at California State University May 15 to May 16.

Christmas Get Away: The Extraction of Eduardo Iturbide 100 Years Ago

A sensitive diplomatic situation developed in the Mexican capital in December 1914. It greatly affected the future of Pancho Villa’s productive relationship with the United States and the Department of State in particular. The main cause of consternation was Colonel Eduardo Iturbide, a distant relation of the first Mexican emperor, Agustin de Iturbide. He had been police chief of Mexico City, as well as governor of the Federal District. After President Victoriano Huerta chose to go into exile in July 1914, Iturbide stayed behind to maintain order in the capital. His efforts enjoyed widespread admiration among the foreign colony. A very wealthy socialite and accredited “nobleman,” Iturbide was handsome, charming, a member of all the right clubs, and a successful polo player. The American government especially appreciated Iturbide’s courage to stay behind as a Huerta official and wait for the forces of Alvaro Obregón rather than Emiliano Zapata to take control of the capital. American officials and the large colony of foreign businessmen shuddered at the thought, albeit irrational, of Zapata’s “wild hordes” ransacking the city and murdering foreigners for entertainment. 

Eduardo N. Iturbide

Iturbide kept his commitment. The capital remained calm.  In order to keep order Iturbide moved police and federal army units to the outskirts of Mexico City to check the advance of the encroaching Zapatistas. According to press reports, fifty Zapatistas died in the clashes. When General Obregón finally entered the capital in the middle of August, the American colony demanded that Iturbide remain unmolested. Under pressure from the American embassy, Obregón had to guarantee the police chief’s security. A week later, Carranza seconded the decision, deferring a “trial” of Iturbide for serving under Huerta and killing Constitutionalist soldiers to a later, unspecified date.

However, all that changed in November, the moment Obregón left the city and allowed the Zapatistas to take over. The colonel’s fate threatened to parallel that of his famous ancestor, Emperor Iturbide of Mexico: Execution. Fearing for his life, he went underground, protected by the American diplomats John Silliman and Leon Canova. He hid in the residence of H. Cunard Cummins, the British charge d’affairs. As the new government under Eulalio Gutiérrez settled in, both the Villa and Zapata factions began rounding up former federals, members of the Huerta government, supporters of the Carranza government, and a whole host of people noted on wanted lists as “enemies of the state.” According to American reports, 155 men had been executed in the week after Christmas alone. Without question, Iturbide featured prominently on Zapata’s blacklist. President Gutiérrez did not support the wonton acts of violence Villa and Zapata’s henchmen were committing. However, he had little sway over the likes of Villa’s notorious executor, Rodolfo Fierro, settling old debts. “Representations were made to the authorities in Mexico City by both the American and British government, asking that he [Iturbide] be given passports to leave the country. These were granted by provisional president Gutiérrez and immediately resulted in a vigorous protest from Gen. Palafox, the Zapata leader in Mexico City.”

Special Envoy to Mexico, Leon L. Canova

On December 21st, American special envoy Leon L. Canova with the help of American consul John R. Silliman convinced Mexican President Gutiérrez to issue a safe conduct pass for Iturbide. Both diplomats acted on orders of the State Department. In the previous week, on December 13th, Secretary of State Bryan had instructed Silliman: “Do everything in your power to save Iturbide. He acted for Carvajal [sic] and turned the city over to the Constitutionalists thus saving much loss of life as well as preventing disorder. It would be most unfortunate if he were dealt with harshly.” Accordingly, Silliman created a passport for “a citizen of Mexico sojourning in the United States.” With Zapata hot on Iturbide’s heals, Silliman and Canova decided to smuggle him out.

Canova had scheduled a trip back to Texas in order to be home for Christmas. He decided to hide Iturbide in his special railcar, in which he enjoyed diplomatic immunity. None other than Pancho Villa himself saw Canova, and even briefly chatted with him, at the train station in Mexico City on December 22nd. It is unclear why Villa was at the station. Most likely, he arrived from a trip. Severe fighting had erupted in Guadalajara, Veracruz, Saltillo, and the area around Tampico. This was a very busy time for Villa, the de-facto master over much of Mexico. The rebel leader who had entered Mexico with a handful of men less than two years ago now had reached the zenith of his military and political power. After the train left, Villa’s secret service reported to him that Iturbide had been observed with Canova and that he had disappeared.

General Francisco "Pancho" Villa

Villa put together what had occurred and, after throwing one of his well-known fits, issued a call for Iturbide’s arrest. Cables went out to garrisons all along the rail line to stop Canova and search his compartment. The situation grew tense. Villa had ransacked a British consulate to get Luis Terrazas Jr. three years earlier. Certainly, he was capable of extracting Iturbide from Canova’s railcar. In fact, he vowed to get Canova and Iturbide himself if his commanders would not dare to. Villa’s secret service agents boarded the train in Aguascalientes. Canova refused to allow a search and managed to fend off the Villistas. A few hours later, the train stopped again, this time in Zacatecas. The next day at Torreon, Canova intimidated a whole company of troops and demanded to complain directly to Pancho Villa. Not knowing what to do the officer in command permitted the train to continue. In Chihuahua City, the Villistas evacuated the whole train, claiming a defective car. A search party finally entered the compartment when Canova exited his railcar. Iturbide was gone! He had exited the train just south of Aguascalientes hours before the first attempt to search the compartment, and was making his way up to the American border on foot. Canova had so misled Iturbide’s pursuers by refusing a search, that they lost his trail. As the train with the American consul arrived in El Paso on Christmas day 1914, Iturbide relied on his skills and sheer luck to make it across the border to safety. “I rode on that train… just one day for I realized that the secret service men were trailing me and that an order for my arrest would come at any minute. I wrote my will and gave it to Mr. Canova and slipped off the train just south of Aguascalientes. I walked around aimlessly for sixty miles and finally got a horse on a ranch. For fifteen days I rode, disguised as a rancher and made my way to the American border, eluding troops and police by traveling mostly at night and sleeping by day.” 

Villa was furious. He declared Canova a persona-non-grata. The new president, Eulalio Gutiérrez, had locked horns with both Villa and Zapata over the widespread persecution and execution of public and personal enemies. This episode brought the tensions to a boil. Villa accused Gutiérrez of corruption and treachery; Gutiérrez leveled charges of insubordination on the northern general. The split between Gutiérrez and his two main rebel leaders was by no means a surprise. However, the Iturbide affair certainly added fuel to the fire. The embattled Mexican president sent his wife to safety on the 9th of January, before he evacuated the capital for San Luis Potosi. Canova’s expulsion from Villa’s territory prompted Secretary of State Bryan to reinstate George C. Carothers as the personal envoy to Villa. Carothers had resigned in early December as a result of disagreements over policy with the State Department. Consistent rumors of corruption, coming from State Department sources, that have never been proven or litigated, implanted themselves in the historical portrait of the special envoy. Undoubtedly, Villa’s already shaky relationship with William Jennings Bryan also deteriorated as a result of this episode. Rather than ruining Canova’s diplomatic career, Villa’s refusal to let him come back to Mexico got the native Floridian a huge promotion: Secretary Bryan decided to appoint Canova to head the Latin American desk of the State Department. Canova thus became one of Villa's most powerful enemies. 

Germany's Effort to Stop Canada's Expeditionary Forces in 1914

In the end of August 1914 Canada mobilized the largest expeditionary force in her history. On August 4, the day of the declaration of war, the Canadian armed forces numbered 3,110 men with 684 horses. In the third week of September, the Canadian ranks had swelled to 83,000 men, which shipped to Europe on October 3 and 24. The first contingent consisted of 31,200 men with arms, trucks, horses, and supplies. “It took three hours for the line of ships, more than twenty-one miles long, to steam through the harbour's narrow exit into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Once in the open the great armada reformed in fleet formation-three lines ahead, fifteen cables (3,000 yards) apart, each led by a cruiser, the fourth cruiser bringing up the rear.”

The Valcartier Camp in the end of August 1914

With orders to prevent Canadian forces from shipping out to Europe, the German Military Attaché in the U.S. Franz von Papen and Naval Attaché Karl Boy-Ed got to work. As soon as von Papen had hired Paul Koenig and his “detective agency,” he sent the secret service man to canvass the East Coast of Canada. The intelligence mission consisted of estimating exactly the extent of the Canadian mobilization, as well as identifying possible targets that would interrupt or sabotage the effort. For a period of five weeks, Koenig and his agents traveled to Canada on reconnaissance missions. Laureat Jean J. Leclerc, a garage owner in Quebec, rented cars to the German agents. He also repeatedly served as Koenig’s driver on the spying forays. In 1915, after Koenig’s activities came to light, Leclerc testified against the German agent. According to the garage owner, Koenig and his associate Siegfried H. Mundheim canvassed the waterfront of Quebec “on several night trips.” “At first…I thought well of Koenig. I drove him around the Valcartier camp, about the wharves, along the water front, but one thing struck me – his trips were made mostly at night.” The majority of Canada’s expeditionary forces converged on the Valcartier military camp starting in the beginning of September 1914.

On September 15, Paul Koenig, Frederick Metzler, and Edmund Justice left for Burlington, Vermont. On the same day, Alfred Fritzen, Frederick Busse, Costante Covani, Franz Wachendorf alias Horst von der Goltz, and Charles Tuchendler left for Buffalo, New York. Koenig’s mission is not specifically documented. However, it clearly targeted the troop camp at Valcartier and the harbor of Quebec, where Canada’s expeditionary troops made last preparations for shipping to Europe. As to the second team that included Wachendorf, the mission was to sabotage the Welland Canal, thereby creating a diversion while the primary team under Koenig sank a barge or blew up a bridge to block the shipping channel. Both groups were armed and equipped, although the extent of preparations is only known about Wachendorf’s team. Von Papen testified in 1932 that half of Wachendorf’s dynamite remained in another German safe house, the apartment of “Martha Heldt, at No. 123 West 15th Street” in lower Manhattan. Wachendorf wrote that he left “two suit-cases” at the Heldt apartment. Originally, the two hundred pounds of explosives had been packed into two suitcases.

The coordinated attack on Canada never occurred. Curiously, von Papen had cancelled the mission one week before the shipment of Canadian troops to England. The “great armada” sailed on October 3, not on September 24 as Wachendorf claimed in his memoirs. The German agent also claimed that he laid off Busse and Fritzen while still in Buffalo, because of lack of funding. However, both men continued to work for the German secret service, which is widely documented in von Papen and Albert’s accounts. So what might really have happened? If the bombs had gone off at Welland in the last week of September, they would have generated the most impact and quite possibly jeopardized the assemblage of the troop ships. The glitch in the plan must have been a completely different one: The Canadian military knew that the Welland Canal was a prime target for terrorists. In the period leading up to the troop transports to England, “Canada formed a security service consisting of telegraph operators, customs and immigration officers, local and special police, military guards, private detectives and watchmen. This protective service was under the authority of Lt. Col. Percy Sherwood, Chief Commissioner of the Dominion Police. For the Canadian authorities the most important public utility that needed protection was the canal systems of Ontario and Quebec. The largest force used, one thousand, was deployed to protect the Welland Canal.” One convincing theory explaining the abandonment of the mission is that the Welland Canal team simply got cold feet. 

If the Welland Canal was well protected one can only imagine the security around the British fleet that was about to carry a whole army to Europe. Without the diversion Wachendorf’s team planned to execute, Koenig and his associates had no chance to get even close to the harbor of Quebec or the military camp of Valcartier in these last days of September. The same is true for any German raider that might have been dispatched to the Canadian coast. Steaming into the St. Lawrence or laying in wait at its mouth would have been sheer suicide. After Wachendorf and his men bailed, Koenig realized the futility of his mission and returned to New York around the same time.

On October 3 1914, with both sabotage teams back in New York, “… the entire Armada, containing the largest military force which had ever crossed the Atlantic at one time, set sail for England. In three long parallel lines of about a dozen ships each, with flags flying and signals twinkling, it made an imposing sight for the handful of people who saw it off. On October 6, the convoy was joined at sea by a ship carrying the Newfoundland Regiment. Before and during the crossing there had been much talk about the threat of German submarines but this threat never materialized.” The Commander of Germany’s submarine fleet, Admiral Hermann Bauer did claim in his memoirs that U-20, a German long distance submarine, indeed had gone to Canada to intercept the Canadian troop transports. “U-20 …came back from its mission against the large Canadian transport near the Hebrides…” Luckily, the convoy had escaped the underwater predator. A little over seven months later, the Lusitania was not so lucky and received a deadly torpedo from the same submarine. By the end of the war, 65,000 Canadian soldiers had succumbed in the trenches of Europe.

Imperial German Intelligence Chiefs Meet in New York

A most interesting meeting of a group of high level German secret service chiefs and diplomats took place on the evening of September 22, 1914 on the roof garden of the Ritz-Carlton in New York. German Ambassador Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff and the the commercial agent and spymaster in New York, Heinrich F. Albert met with Count Arthur von Rex, the returning German ambassador to Japan, and Colonel Alexander von Falkenhausen, the German military attaché in Tokyo. Von Falkenhausen's wife also attended. Japan had declared war on Germany on August 23, prompting the German ambassador’s return from Tokyo. The outbreak of hostilities with Japan also precipitated the assignment to China of an experienced diplomat, personal friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II, minister to Mexico, and naval intelligence officer in the person of Rear Admiral Paul von Hintze.

Rear Admiral Paul von Hintze

Much has been made of this secret trip, Admiral Paul von Hintze made from Mexico City to Beijing in the fall of 1914. The German diplomat never revealed exactly where and when he went. However, archival sources that contain Heinrich Albert's wartime diary now document that in the middle of September, von Hintze was traveling through New York and San Francisco to his new post in the Far East. While Albert did not mention the rear admiral as a member of this dinner in the end of September, it is certain that he was there. Around the time of the dinner, von Hintze was in New York, had meetings with von Falkenhausen, and turned over his naval intelligence responsibilities for the American theater to the Imperial naval attaché in New York, Captain (of the Navy) Karl Boy-Ed. It would be more than logical that he timed his secret trip to meet his retiring colleague from Tokyo and receive briefings on navy intelligence activities in the Far East, now the essence of von Hintze’s wartime assignment. From New York von Hintze traveled to San Francisco where he met Kurt Jahnke, a notorious sabotage agent who has been alleged to be behind the explosion on Black Tom Island in New York harbor in the summer of 1916. There is no mention of Karl Boy-Ed at the dinner. While he certainly had meetings with von Hintze, Boy-Ed might not have felt too social that day. His younger brother Walter, a captain in the German artillery, had been badly injured and died around the day of the meeting.

Alexander Freiherr von Falkenhausen

Von Hintze took his assignment in the Far East in October 1914. Under his auspices, Germany waged a secret war against the Entente powers in the Far East which included a sabotage campaign not too different of what Karl Boy Ed and his colleague, Military Attache Franz von Papen conducted in the United States at the same time. The similarities of the sabotage campaigns and their coordination through the members of the secret dinner meeting in New York are striking. In the end of 1915 von Hintze once more traveled through the United States in disguise to take his assignment as ambassador to Norway. On July 9, 1918 von Hintze became Imperial German foreign minister. As the German empire collapsed under the weight of a combined Entente and American military on the eastern front and internal turmoil, the imperial cabinet decided to send none other than the dashing diplomat and admiral von Hintze to ask the Kaiser for his resignation. Von Hintze retired after the war. Alexander von Falkenhausen became a general and returned to the Far East in the 1930s to become a close adviser of Chiang Kai-Shek. After becoming a major conspirator in the coup d'etat against Hitler in 1944, General von Falkenhausen spent the last year of the war in concentration camps but survived. 

The Hindu-German Conspiracy and Mexico

On October 11, 1914 the Imperial German Foreign Office sent a telegram asking Ambassador von Bernstorff in Washington to purchase and ship arms and munitions for the resistance movements in British and French colonies. The group used this request as their chance to try out their plan and prove its feasibility to the German government. Germany had maintained close contacts with several resistance groups fighting their colonial masters in Ireland, Palestine, India, Afghanistan, Persia, Indonesia, and North Africa. These groups realistically only had one thing in common: Defeat England and France. That desire made them natural allies in Germany’s efforts to “hurt the enemy.” One of the most active and effective groups, an organization of Punjab Indians (Sikh not Hindu) was located in the United States. In 1913, the group had formed the Ghadr party under the leadership of Har Dayal, headquartered in San Francisco. The party grew quickly mainly as a result of its leader’s captivating personality. To his followers, Har Dayal incorporated the highest traits of wisdom and spiritualism. However, his success made him a target for the American authorities. They accused him of radical leanings and involvement with anarchist and socialist circles. Dayal’s weekly paper, the Hindustan Gadhar promoted martyrdom, and recruited volunteers to fight against British rule. English, Canadian, and U.S. authorities tried their best to disperse and prosecute the Indian resistance leaders. After a brief arrest in April 1914 for “speeches so villainously offensive to common decency and order” Har Dayal decided to jump bail and move to Germany. When the war started, he organized in the “Indian Independence Committee” in the German capital. In the first months of the war the German government actively supported several Ghadr operations in the Islamist areas of India, as well as in Afghanistan, and Singapore with money, transportation, and weapons.

The German military attache in Washington Franz von Papen eagerly accepted the responsibility to organize the proposed military support of the Ghadr efforts. Not only could von Papen now buy military supplies in the U.S. market, he could also experiment with the logistics of selling arms and ammunition from the United States to third parties. Through Felix A. Sommerfeld and the pro-German envoy of the Constitutionalists in Washington, Rafael Zubaran Capmany, the German embassy had close contacts to both the Villa and Carranza factions in Mexico. On September 26, 1914 someone of the Carranza camp petitioned the German embassy for a supply of munitions. The petitioner appears in the German correspondence log as “R. O. Fabricius, Progreso.” Whether the reference meant to describe the German businessman Adolfo Fabricius who indeed lived in Progreso, Yucatan, is not clear. Fabricius most likely was the German merchant to handle the order for Carranza’s U.S. envoy Rafael Zubaran Capmany. The request was approved on October 7 with the notation “Forwarded to Tauscher. Not more than 100,000. Delivery in three months.” The German commercial agent in New York and paymaster for all German clandestine missions Heinrich F. Albert noted in his diary on October 22, 1914, “…give (Papen) check for $100,000 for arms Tauscher.” Military Attaché von Papen, who was in charge of what the embassy correspondence log categorized as “Munitions Business,” tasked Kruup repersentative in the U.S. and German agent Hans Tauscher to procure the required arms and ammunition for both the Indian resistance movement and the Mexican revolutionary forces. The plan was to buy a large cache of rifles with corresponding cartridges. Von Papen made his first mistake of many in the execution of the operation in not telling Tauscher where the arms were destined. On October 26 Tauscher submitted his invoice for the order. He had found 10,890 rifles and 3.9 million cartridges through Robert vom Cleff, a small time New York arms dealer and friend of Tauscher. The rifles consisted mostly of Springfield 45/70 that had been designed in 1873 and not been used in the active U.S. military since 1897. The American government had been working on selling these weapons as surplus for a decade.

On October 27 the rifles and ammunition from the Kansas army surplus went to a storage facility at 521 West 20th Street in New York, a recently completed nine story building in lower Manhattan. The project now became more complex. The arms had to be delivered to San Diego where the German admiralty meanwhile was to organize the transportation to Mexico and to a meeting point with Indian resistance fighters. For the move to San Diego, Heinrich Albert booked space on the SS Nueces, a Mallory Line steamer, to take the shipment to Galveston, Texas. The Nueces was one of the ships Albert had leased for cotton shipments. From Galveston, the arms would then be transferred onto rail and taken to San Diego, California. On January 9, 1915 the Nueces left New York with 561 cases of rifles (20 per case), 3,759 cases of cartridges (1,000 per case), and 10 bales of munitions belts. The shipment had been fully insured and consigned to Walter C. Hughes in San Diego. He was Tauscher’s freight forwarder in New York with corresponding offices in Galveston and Los Angeles. However, the real consignee of course was the German consulate in San Francisco. The shipment arrived in Galveston ten days later. Even for the standards of the times when huge transfers of weapons from the United States to Mexico occurred almost daily, this was a large order. It took eleven freight cars to transport the shipment to San Diego.

On the January 19, 1915, a front woman in San Francisco, probably employed by the Jebsen Shipping Line, sent a $14,000 payment to a lawyer in San Diego to lease the three-mast, 326-ton Annie Larsen. The schooner’s monthly lease was an additional $1,250. The sail ship had seen better days. It was built in 1881 and had been used in the lumber trade along the West Coast. The Annie Larson set sail in San Francisco on January 24 and took on the weapons in San Diego on February 3. The large amount of arms raised eyebrows with American customs officials in San Diego. The consignee of the shipment was “Juan Bernardo Bowen” in Topolobamba, Mexico. Topolobamba, Sinaloa, half way between Guaymas and Mazatlan on the Gulf of Mexico, was under the control of Villistas at the time but hotly contested. Indications are that the shipment of arms indeed was destined for Villa’s troops. The New York Times reported on February 19, “Villa, who has just captured Guadalajara, is centring [sic] his attention now on his west coast campaign, and is doing so because he wants to make doubly sure of receiving a shipment of 9,000 rifles and 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition now being sent on a schooner from San Diego, Cal., to the Mexican west coast…” In the meantime, Frederick Jebsen, Karl Boy-Ed’s agent in charge of supplying the German Pacific fleet, rigged an old oil tanker, the SS Maverick, to meet the Annie Larsen and take on the arms shipment for transfer to the Far East.

After spending one month in dry dock in the port of San Pedro outside of Los Angeles, the tanker took on a new crew. American-born John B. Starr-Hunt boarded the Maverick as Germany’s super-cargo to direct the American captain. Ram Chandra and his people also sent a group of five Indian resistance fighters with propaganda literature and orders on how to get the shipment to the revolutionaries in India. Finally, with eight thousand barrels of fuel oil in the hold (not for own consumption) she headed to the coast of Mexico as well. Her papers listed the final destination as “Anjer, Java.” According to the pro-English account of the affair by French Strother, who quoted the testimony of supercargo John B. Starr-Hunt, the Maverick had been scheduled to meet the Annie Larsen in San José del Cabo at the very tip of Baja California. Once the weapons would be transferred, Starr-Hunt had orders to return to the U.S. with the schooner.

John B. Starr-Hunt

Two months meanwhile had passed since the Annie Larsen had arrived in San José del Cabo. When the Maverick was finally cleared to sail in the end of April 1915, British intelligence services were watching the movements of the old oil tanker. The British agents suspected the identity of the Maverick’s owners, the American-Asiatic Oil Company to be a cover. At the insistence of British intelligence, American customs officials boarded and searched the Maverick while still in harbor. However, her hold was empty. Still suspecting a German covert operation the British cruiser HMS Newcastle shadowed the oil tanker when she finally sailed. With the British cruiser tailing, the Maverick decided to make a run to Socorro Island, about four hundred miles off the Mexican shore. The Island was the agreed to alternative meeting point with the weapons laden schooner. The oil tanker shook the British cruiser but did not find the Anne Larsen at the island. 

The Annie Larsen had indeed sailed from the tip of the Baja California to Socorro Island, the secondary meeting point. However, the crew waited for one month, after which food and fresh water ran low. In need of provisions the Annie Larsen sailed southeast to Acapulco to re-supply. Acapulco is one thousand miles south of the tip of Baja California and completely out of the way of her presumed final destination. However, the prevailing winds in the region did not allow the sail ship to go due east back to the Baja California. Instead, she had to tack south. It is not known, if the Annie Larsen cleared any of her cargo while in San José del Cabo. If she did, it would have been the shipment Pancho Villa had been expecting. When she arrived in Acapulco, which was in Carrancista territory, she cleared the majority of her load. Numerous accounts detailed how the Carrancista port authorities refused to let the weapons laden ship continue on her voyage. According to author David Wilma, “Only through the intervention by U.S. Navy officers from the cruiser U.S.S. Yorktown, also at Acapulco at the time, was the Annie Larsen released.”

After re-supplying in Acapulco, the Annie Larsen supposedly tried to return to Socorro Island. She never made it on account of “bad weather.” Indeed, it would be a tough trip to make against the strong headwinds, which prevail between the southern coast of Mexico and Socorro Island. Instead of heading out into the Pacific, the schooner headed up the U.S. coast to Washington State, her home base. Finally, on June 29, 1915 the five-month odyssey of the Annie Larsen ended at Gray’s Harbor in Hoquiam, Washington. The U.S. local customs collector impounded the ship including what remained in her hold. He found 4,000 rifles and one million cartridges worth $25,000. The German agent on board who had directed the captain’s movements escaped. In a landmark trial in 1917 and 1918, German Consul General Bopp, his attachés von Schack and von Brincken, as well as two-dozen German and Indian conspirators involved in the plot were tried and convicted to hard time. Hans Tauscher was indicted but remained free for lack of evidence. In the sensational end of the trial one of the Indian conspirators shot the leader of the Indian resistance movement, Ram Chandra. The U.S. marshal in the courtroom in turn killed the attacker. 

October 1914 -The U.S. and Mexico on Edge

On September 23, 1914, Pancho Villa declared war against Venustiano Carranza. Disagreements over the leadership of Mexico after the ouster of Victoriano Huerta in July precipitated the third, most violent phase of the Mexican Revolution.

A major front in this renewed civil war opened on the border between Arizona and Sonora in the tiny hamlet of Naco. The Villista governor Jose Maria Maytorena had pushed the forces of Carranza against the international border and besieged the town. The Carranzista commanders Benjamin Hill and Plutarco Elias Calles dug in as they were able to receive supplies from the American side of the border. Heavy fighting on the Mexican side caused stray bullets to pound the American side of the town.  As a result, the 10th U.S. Cavalry with reinforcements from the 9th took up positions on October 7. The 12th Infantry from Nogales, Arizona joined the cavalry units that had been dispatched from Fort Huachuca near Tucson and Fort Douglas. The commander of the Southern Department of the U.S. army at Fort Sam Houston, Brigadier General Tasker Howard Bliss, had overall command. The American units dug in and observed the fighting. Stray bullets - some were occasionally not so stray - pounded the American positions and American onlookers, some of whom came from as far as Bisbee to see the fighting. Naco, Arizona sustained heavy damages as a result of the continued shelling. “From their trenches and rifle pits, the men of the 10th and their comrades from the 9th Cavalry watched the fighting. It was a dangerous business; the Buffalo Soldier regiment [10th Cavalry] had eight men wounded while the Ninth ‘had some killed and wounded.’ They also lost a number of horses and mules from gunfire straying across the border.” Unlike the previous battles in Sonora, in which Maytorena consistently defeated the Constitutionalist opposition, Naco did not turn into a rout. In fierce combat General Benjamin Hill dug in along the border and supplied his troops from the American side. “Three lines of formidable trenches and earthen breastworks interspaced about 200 yards apart were thrown up around the entire perimeter to the border. Barbed wire and whatever other obstacles could be found were erected to impede the expected attack…the town [of Naco, Sonora] was transformed into a virtual fortress…”

Courtesy of the Journal of the West

The American troops were under orders not to return fire. As the siege dragged on, the restraint of the U.S. army turned into admirable acts of self-discipline. Colonel William C. Brown of the 10th Cavalry confided in a letter to a friend in October of 1914,

About 12:25 a.m., on the 17th [Maytorena] made the most determined attack yet made [sic]---first from the west, then from the east and lastly from the south, the direction which would send the high shots into our camp and of which he had previously been warned. On the night of the 10th four shots hit the little R.R. station where I had my headquarters; on the night of the 16th-17th, 14 shots hit the same building and I should say that the shots (probably several hundred) dropped in our camp in about the same proportion. Fortunately nearly all men and animals had been moved out for safety but notwithstanding this our casualty list was as follows: Four troopers wounded, one will probably die, and another lose his eye-sight [sic]. One horse and one mule killed one horse wounded besides at least two natives shot on the U.S. side of the line. It is a surprise here that the U.S. takes no notice of such an outrageous proceeding. Does the U.S. Government propose to sit complacently by and allow such deliberate firing perpendicular to the boundary that our soldiers are shot in their own camps? This after repeated warnings of the effect of such firing. If this be true I am having my eyes opened, and getting an entirely new idea of the protection afforded by the U.S. flag.

On December 11, General Tasker H. Bliss inspected the situation in Naco. According to the New York Times, Mexican rebels took potshots at the American general. “…Two bullets fired from the Mexican side of the boundary passed perilously near the General and his staff as he was examining a bomb-proof [shelter] near the immigration station, about 100 feet north of the international line. Soldiers guarding the immigration station are protected by three bomb proofs and by a line of loaded coal cars drawn before the American town and the border, but a break in the line of coal cars had been left to permit access to the border. Gen. Bliss was near this break when the bullets whistled.” Whether Mexican snipers targeted General Bliss on purpose or the incident was accidental, the Wilson administration’s decision to dispatch a larger military force was affirmed. The next day, the U.S. military moved heavy artillery from Fort Bliss, Texas into Naco.

On December 15, the entire 6th Brigade, with 4,750 soldiers headed from Galveston, Texas to Naco, bringing the total American troop strength there to 6,215 men. The American army had assembled a full invasion force, larger and with more firepower than the troops dispatched to Veracruz in April, complete with cavalry, infantry, and heavy artillery. With the blessing of the War Department General Bliss issued an ultimatum on December 16: “If for any reason a single shot falls on American soil after this ultimatum has reached you and has been translated, I will be forced to use extreme measures to end this useless danger to innocent lives in a neutral and well-intentioned country.” 

Villa as Commander-in-Chief of the Convention government not only rejected the ultimatum but also, to the alarm of President Wilson and his cabinet, proceeded to give U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Hugh Lenox Scott a taste of old fashioned Mexican machismo. He answered through Felix Sommerfeld: “I have mobilized eight thousand cavalrymen and they left yesterday under the command of General Cabral who will be in Casas Grandes within two days and they will proceed to Naco immediately period…if he [Scott] will permit us the time of eight hours Naco will be taken and the situation will be concluded…the assault will be rapid, uniform and effective period. Please cause General Scott to know this and ask him to have patience for four days…” While Villa’s chest thumping might appear just to be that, the situation could not have grown tenser. Villa threatened war! Moving eight thousand troops to northern Sonora, which was almost completely in the hands of his forces, clearly aimed at the American army, assembled on the other side of the line. The combined forces of Maytorena and Villa numbering approximately 9,500 would trump the assembled American army units.  

Generals Mitchie, Scott and Pancho Villa in a meeting in El Paso organized by Felix A. Sommerfeld

General Scott took Villa’s threat at face value and cabled to the Secretary of War Lindlay M. Garrison for permission to “…stop movement of Villa’s troops in this direction before leaving the railroad or failing this that all Americans be brought out of Mexico and General Bliss be instructed to protect the town of Naco by repelling the attack by force of arms. General Bliss desires that he receive his instructions in time to bring field hospital from San Antonio and make other necessary dispositions.” As between six and seven thousand American troops readied themselves for a military expedition into Mexico, Villa assembled two full cavalry brigades to assault the border town of Naco. Acting Secretary of War Breckenridge approved the field hospital to be moved in place on January 2, 1915. On January 9, Sommerfeld, who had the ungrateful task of shuttling between Villa and Maytorena, received the long awaited signature from the Sonoran strongman, in which he agreed to give up the siege. Already on the previous day General Hill had left Naco by train for Galveston, Texas to join up with Carrancista forces fighting in Veracruz. The situation was diffused. For now. Within a year the border erupted in violence again, causing virtually the entire regular U.S. army to be stationed in defense of the homeland. 

Johann Heinrich Count von Bernstorff - Wartime Ambassador

Johann Heinrich Count von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States from 1908 to 1914 remains a controversial historical figure. Widely admired before the war, he received several honorary doctorates, graced the Washington and New York social scene with his charm, intelligence, perfect command of the English language, and his American wife. After the World War, Count Bernstorff became a political force in Germany, co-founder of the German Democratic Party, parliamentarian from 1921 to 1928, and a strong voice for Democracy. He supported the League of Nations and global disarmament. He ran afoul with the Nazi government as a result of his convictions and went into exile in Switzerland, where he died in 1939 at the eve of World War II. He is remembered and revered as a moderate voice in Germany, a man of principle, who dared to stand up to the fascist dictator.

The controversy about Count Bernstorff has to do with his role as ambassador in the United States in the Great War. Publicly and as a diplomat, he adamantly opposed the German submarine war and instead pursued mediation between Germany and the United States to a point of total frustration. He wrote in his war time memoirs: “Every time a diplomatic success was in view, an [submarine attack] incident occurred, which made it necessary to start one’s labours all over again." Despite his moderate stance, or "defeatism" as the Nazis later accused him, he did have knowledge of German clandestine operations in the United States. He also had, at least nominally, command and control over these operations. What was his involvement in German clandestine missions, especially the deadly sabotage campaign of 1915 and 1916? 

Count Bernstorff's primary biographer, Reinhard Doerries, documented meticulously the ambassador's opposition to the German strategy of aggression against the United States. Looking at his life before and after the war, it is hard to fathom that this man indeed knew and condoned the fire bombings, ship sinkings, contraband smuggling, labor unrest, and misinformation that German agents undertook between 1914 and 1917. A historian can easily argue that the ambassador knew nothing, saw nothing, and did nothing. As is the case in any secret service operation, the very least a diplomatic representative can expect is plausible deniability. The German government destroyed Bernstorff's wartime instructions for when he came back to the U.S. in the end of August 1914. No incriminating documents have surfaced bearing his signature.

That is until now. The ambassador was a leading member of the command and control of German clandestine activities in the U.S. He met regularly and corresponded with Heinrich Albert, the man in charge of financing all secret service activities in the U.S. Together, Albert and Bernstorff opened bank accounts in dozens of cities through which funds flowed to German agents. In particular, Felix Sommerfeld used one of those accounts to finance munitions purchased for Pancho Villa. When Albert lost his briefcase and its contents graced the headlines of American dailies, the ambassador quickly promoted him to Commercial Attache. He thus prevented legal action against the paymaster of the German secret mission.

Bernstorff also attended the meetings of the German propaganda team in New York, gave suggestions, reprimanded Franz von Papen and Karl Boy-Ed when they wrote letters to editors that sounded too belligerent. The ambassador suggested the purchase of a large American newspaper, which happened in the spring of 1915. That in itself might not be illegal, but the same propaganda team also bribed editors of major newspapers, spread purposely misleading information, and provided target lists for German sabotage agents. The ambassador authorized the construction of a German owned munitions factory in 1915. This ruse locked up the American market for hydraulic presses, smokeless powder, and picric acid. Most significantly, there was a clear connection between the most notorious German sabotage agent, Franz Rintelen, and the German ambassador. Rintelen met Bernstorff in the spring of 1915, shortly after his arrival. Supposedly, the meeting was contentious. The source for this is Bernstorff's own account in his memoirs. Those, of course, were written after Rintelen was discovered and sitting in an Atlanta penitentiary for fire bombing thirty-five ships. Rintelen's main mission was to create labor unrest. Strikes in the American war industry greatly benefited Germany. The most important labor leader in 1915 was Samuel Gompers. Rintelen tried to enlist his support for a worker peace movement but the AFL leader would not budge. Bernstorff is documented of initiating several meetings with Gompers in that time. He could not change Gompers' mind either but certainly tried. Rintelen's efforts led to the great Bridgeport strike in the summer of 1915, settled only when employers extended the forty-hour work week to their workers. 

Count Bernstorff clearly knew what was going on, mingled in parts of the clandestine efforts that he considered at least borderline legal, and knew the people involved. The distribution of funds for clandestine missions, the support of German sabotage agents, the knowledge of who engaged in illegal activities definitely link the ambassador to acts of war. Had he been ethically opposed, he could have resigned. It was war, the United States was the de-facto supplier of Germany's enemies, and certainly people like Franz von Papen, Karl Boy-Ed, and Heinrich Albert justified their involvement in actions to stop American arms from reaching the European battlefields, no matter the official neutrality of the United States. Would a reevaluation of the ambassador's actions and a documentation of his depth of knowledge in the clandestine war against the United States between 1914 and 1917 fundamentally change his stature in the Weimar Republic and beyond? This historian thinks not.

New York's Hotel Astor - Hangout for German Spies in World War I

One of the great hotels in New York at the turn of the century was the Hotel Astor on Times Square. The establishment was owned and operated by William C. Muschenheim, a German immigrant who lived the American dream to the fullest. With the backing of the prominent German-American Waldorf-Astor family, Muschenheim had built and expanded this landmark hotel on Times Square between 1904 and 1910. A room cost between $4 and $5 per night. $20 per night would get you one of the lavish suites on the forth floor. One of the great features of the Astor was the terrace roof garden, a large restaurant and bar on top of the hotel with great views of the Manhattan's skyline.

On August 13, 1914, as World War I took shape in Europe, Felix A. Sommerfeld, a German Naval Intelligence agent and official representative and arms buyer for Pancho Villa rented a three-room suite on the forth floor of the Muschenheim establishment. He lived there for the duration of the war. Many times in the months after Sommerfeld settled in New York, journalists loitered in the lavishly decorated reception hall of the Astor Hotel hoping to catch the German agent for a comment as he was checking for messages and telegrams at the front desk. Although most of Sommerfeld’s telegrams were coded, the receptionists knew from the newspapers that their wealthy guest worked for Pancho Villa, the famed Mexican revolutionary whose exploits excited the movie goers of the day. 

On September 16, 1914, the former Imperial Secretary of Colonies Bernhard Dernburg gave a speech to several hundred German-Americans invited to the roof garden by the German University League. In attendance were the German Ambassador Johann Heinrich Count von Bernstorff, the second counselor of the German embassy, Hermann Prince von Hatzfeld zu Trachenberg, and the German purchasing agent and paymaster of German clandestine missions in the U.S., Heinrich F. Albert. Dernburg, who defended the German invasion of Belgium, had charge of fund raising for German operations in the U.S., clearly the chief purpose of the event.  

The Astor roof garden

Almost exactly a year later, Heinrich Albert himself took a suite in the Astor. American agents had stolen his briefcase and published the contents in New York's largest papers. The scandal made the nondescript and shy German agent into an overnight celebrity. Reporters, investigators, and secret agents beleaguered Albert's office in the Hamburg-America building on 45 Broadway. Every move he made was recorded and reported. He moved his office to the Astor as a consequence. 

On the morning of October 28, 1915, New York police rushed into the hotel, went to the forth floor and pounded on the door to Felix Sommefeld's suite. They arrested the German agent on a warrant that dated back to 1898. Handcuffed and visibly shaken, Sommerfeld was paraded through the reception hall of the Astor, causing a sensation in the evening papers. The German agent beat the charges but not before agents of the Bureau of Investigations had searched his rooms. A few years later, on June 21, 1918, agents of the U.S. Secret Service came for the German agent. Again he was paraded through the hotel in handcuffs and again the front pages of the New York papers reported on the scandal. After three days of debriefing, he was interned at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia as a dangerous enemy alien. Unlike the time before, Sommerfeld would not return to the hotel for over a year. 

The ballroom of the Astor

There are no records that indicate whether William Muschenheim had any idea that German agents used his establishment to plot their campaigns against America. However, he did particularly like Felix Sommerfeld, to whom, while in internment, he wrote a note in May 1919 wishing him Happy Birthday. After his release in the summer of 1919, Sommerfeld returned to the Astor where American agents noted that he again entertained all kinds of folk, plotting revolutions in Mexico. The Astor Hotel changed owners in the 1950s, and finally went out of business in 1967. In 1968, the hotel was demolished and made space for a fifty-four story skyscraper.

August 4th 1914: The Secret War on the United States Began...

On August 4th 1914, fifty-four German merchant ships and passenger liners interned themselves in U.S. harbors to escape marauding British warships. Among the liners was the queen of transatlantic travel, the SS Vaterland. Albert Ballin, founder, chairman and CEO of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Paketdienst Gesellschaft had personally overseen her construction. She not only represented the might of German engineering and ship construction, she was the largest ocean liner in the world, larger than the Lusitania, Mauretania, and Titanic. The Vaterland not only eclipsed the British liners in terms of size and power, but also in terms of design and luxury. While larger and wider, she approximately matched Lusitania and Mauretania’s speed.

The SS Vaterland, after World War I renamed SS Leviathan under the American flag. Technical data: Length: 950 feet (Titanic 882 feet, Lusitania 787 feet); Width: 100 feet (Titanic 92 feet, Lusitania 87 feet); Draught: 36 feet (Titanic 35 feet, Lusitania 34 feet); Gross Registered Tons: 54,282 (Titanic 46,328, Lusitania 31,550); Crew: 1,234 (Titanic 885, Lusitania 850); Passengers: 3,909 (Titanic 3,547, Lusitania 2,198); Engines: 4 Blohm and Voss Steam Turbines, 100,000 hp (Titanic 59,000 hp, Lusitania 76,000 hp); Max Speed 26.3 Knots (Titanic 23 Knots, Lusitania 26.7 Knots)

The German ambassador to the United States, Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff commented after traveling on the mighty ship in 1914, “Germans who live at home can hardly imagine with what love and what pride we foreign ambassadors and exiled Germans regarded the German shipping-lines.” To Count Bernstorff and many others, the Vaterland was an ambassador in itself. After the war she would sail again, however under a different name and a different flag.

In the harbors of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Newport News, where the German merchant ships and ocean liners crowded the piers, thousands of German naval reservists stood ready to serve the Fatherland. The German sailors became a deadly resource for German Naval Attaché Karl Boy-Ed. Boy-Ed started clandestine operations immediately at the outbreak of the war. His first task was to supply Germany’s remaining naval assets in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with coal, food, and supplies. Boy-Ed also selected groups of agents for the German naval intelligence in the U.S. from the crews of the moored German ships. Within days of German ships interning themselves in U.S. harbors on August 4th 1914, critical funding came to Boy-Ed from the German Admiralty through German businesses with offices in the U.S. such as the Bayer Chemical Company and Wessels, Kuhlenkampf, and Co. 

Naval Commander Karl Boy-Ed

Bayer, a chemical company not only known for the development of Aspirin but also with a veritable world monopoly on dye stuffs, had large currency reserves in the United States. When the war began, the chemical concern transferred these funds to the German embassy. The German government reimbursed the company in Germany, thereby successfully masking the money trail. The coordinator for requisitioning, organizing, and distributing these funds was a relatively nondescript administrator in the German Reichsmarineamt (Department of the Navy), Department B.I.2., Lieutenant Commander Franz Rintelen. Rintelen would become the most daring of the German sabotage agents in the United States in 1915. On August 5th 1914, the Bayer Chemical Company transferred $300,000 to Boy-Ed’s accounts via the Warburg Bank. American citizens viewed the European war with curiosity, some even with dread. Few realized the fact that within days of the beginning of hostilities in Europe, the Unites States had become a battlefield in this war.

Who can forget this day of infamy 100 years ago?

For a whole month since the assassination of Austria's crown prince and his wife, the German Emperor Wilhelm II and his Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg had done their very best to entice the Austro-Hungarian Empire to attack Serbia in retaliation. Both knew that this would produce a general war, one, that the Emperor believed he could win. Germany would finally have dominance over the continent and room to expand eastward into a weak and defeated Russia. However, as the plan came to fruition and as the European nations marched towards the abyss, Wilhelm II suddenly had second thoughts. Serbia had basically agreed to most of Austria's demands. On July 28th, in a handwritten note to German Foreign Secretary Gottlieb von Jagow, Emperor Wilhelm II admitted: “I am convinced that on the whole the wishes of the Danube Monarchy have been acceded to. The few reservations that Serbia makes in regard to individual points could, according to my opinion, be settled by negotiation.” The grandson of Queen Victoria, the cousin of Czar Nicholas, the man who had fired Chancellor Prince Bismarck, had set Europe on fire and now, as the flames shot up into the sky, he began to see the inevitable existence of his imperial fingerprints on the criminal diplomacy of July 1914. Although it took historical forensics until the 1960s to fully understand the detailed circumstances of the outbreak of the Great War, British, Italian, French, and American diplomats knew the truth. The guilt for the world war lay squarely in the lap of the Austrian and German governments.

                                                                             Emperor Wilhelm II of Preussen

On that day, July 28th 1914, the massive armies that had assembled all across Europe took on an unstoppable dynamic. Austria invaded Serbian territory in the morning of that fateful day. Russia mobilized its armies on the next day, two days later full mobilization orders swept through German barracks. On August 1st, Germany declared war against Russia. The ball so aptly described by the Saxonian official barely a month ago now started rolling. France and England joined the war within a week in order to support Russia. Wilhelm’s misgivings had come too late. Still holding out for England’s neutrality Emperor Wilhelm II tried to modify the war planning. He ordered troop deployment on the western front to be halted and to only proceed on the Russian front. Professor Hans Delbrueck, an influential politician, military historian, imperial tutor, and fierce critic of Germany’s war strategy, encapsulated the dynamic of what the emperor had set in motion: “The final war plan … could not be altered... Deployment could not be stopped for technical reasons.” Independent of the diplomatic situation leading up to mobilization, once set in motion, Germany had to attack France first, then Russia. On August 4th, German troops marched through neutral Belgium in order to circumvent the significant French fortifications along the German-French border. The attack plan unreeled statically.

The Schlieffen Plan, Germany’s war plan that formed the basis for a European war scenario with two fronts, proved to be fatally flawed. General Field Marshall Count Alfred von Schlieffen had developed his plan in 1905 as Chief of the General Staff. In its basic outline, von Schlieffen constructed a scenario in which Germany defeated France in a “Blitzkrieg” by outflanking her defending army along the Rhine. The plan called for the violation of Belgian and Dutch neutrality. The German forces were to march through Belgium into northern France and cut the critical supply lines to the North Sea ports. At the same time, a smaller portion of the German army would secure the eastern front while Russia mobilized.

                                                                 Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg

The two main prerequisites for this war plan to work were British neutrality and the element of surprise that was to prevent France from stopping the German advance while Russia took her time to mobilize. Neither of these prerequisites fell into place. As a result of the Austro-Hungarian squabbles with Serbia, Russia partially mobilized on the 28th of July, three days before German mobilization. On August 4th, England declared war against Germany as a result of Germany’s violation of Belgium’s borders. Von Schlieffen, who had died in 1913, must have turned in his grave. The diplomatic work to prepare his war scenario had utterly failed. Wilhelm II and his military advisers received bogus information from Albert Ballin, Ambassador Prince Lichnowsky, Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg, and Foreign Secretary von Jagow with respect to England’s resolve to not let Germany conquer Central Europe. Britain did join the Entente powers France and Russia, while an important German ally, Italy, bailed, and declared neutrality. Belgium offered serious resistance and slowed the German advance to a crawl. On the Russian front, Germany scored impressive victories in the first weeks of the war but none of the battles were decisive. The Russian armies kept up the pressure on Germany. The worst-case scenario, a two-frontal war with stagnant lines, had become a reality within weeks of Germany’s declarations of war against both France and Russia.

A Scandal Bigger than the Murders at Sarajewo

On Sunday, June 28th 1914, an exposé with wide ranging consequences exploded on the first page of the New York Herald. As unbelievable as it sounds today, this second volley by the Carranza people against U.S. lobbyists and Villa supporters was so significant that the details of the scandal competed for first page headlines with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife on the same day. Although we know now that the death of Franz Ferdinand precipitated the outbreak of one of the worst wars this earth ever had to endure, American papers were actually preoccupied with a Watergate-like scandal of 1914. The story involved Sherburne G. Hopkins, the American lawyer and lobbyist who represented the interests of Mexican revolutionaries in Washington and at the same time promoted the interests of his main clients, Henry Clay Pierce and Charles Flint. Both Pierce and Flint owned large interests in railroads, rubber plantations and oil in Mexico and had actively mingled in the Mexican Revolution for years. 

The scandal had its origin just around the beginning of May, the time when Sommerfeld and Hopkins shuttled between New York and Washington, trying to sideline Carranza, and arranging the finance for the final push against Huerta. According to Sherburne Hopkins, burglars entered his Washington D.C. offices at the Hibbs building on 725 15th Street, NW in the middle of the night and “stole a mass of correspondence from his desk.” He suspected the burglars to be “Cientificos,” people who wanted to turn the clock back to Porfirio Diaz’ times.   Hopkins naturally lumped all supporters of Huerta and any enemy of the Constitutionalist cause together under the “Cientifico” label. The Washington lawyer denied knowing who in particular was to blame for the heist, but “had certain parties under suspicion.”  Clearly, he was implicating Huerta agents in the crime. Most astonishing is the fact that, despite the break-in and removal of not a few but hundreds of files from his office, Hopkins did not file a police report. At least such a report cannot be found. This is surprising since an earlier calamity concerning the prominent lawyer found its way into the local press on February 6th 1914, namely the apparent house fire in the Hopkins Residence caused by sparks from a fireplace.  On November 18th 1914, the Washington Herald reported the theft of Hopkins’ coat and trousers in an apparent robbery.  No further detail was given leaving the reader with the impression of a hapless Washington lawyer making his way home in his skivvies. Considering that the theft of Hopkins’ trousers made it into the paper, the burglary of his office most certainly had not been reported.

Sommerfeld had his own suspicions as to the identity of the thieves and implied the Huerta faction.  Certainly, Huertistas would have been the obvious choice. Huerta’s grip on power in May was fading quickly. Money from Pierce and Flint flowed in dazzling amounts to his enemies. The attempt to rally his enemies to the flag and against the Americans had failed, mainly as a result of Hopkins and Sommerfeld’s efforts. The last chance to either achieve an orderly retreat from power, or cling to it for another few months, presented itself in the Niagara Conference. However, without Carranza taking part and without a cease-fire the chances of any tangible results coming from the conference were slim. A scandal was needed. An issue needed to boil to the surface that would deeply divide the American government and the Constitutionalist coalition. If the Mexican public and the revolutionary soldiers would lose their faith in the cause, if it seemed that their idealism had been corrupted by big business and foreign interests, then Huerta and the remaining conservative forces in Mexico had a chance to reverse their fortunes.

That exact possibility became reality the night a burglar rifled through Hopkins’ desk. Hundreds of letters between Hopkins, Carranza, Flint, and Pierce told a story of foreign interests using the Constitutionalists as puppets for their greedy ends. When reading the letters it seemed that the whole revolution had become a competition between Lord Cowdray and Henry Clay Pierce. When the loot appeared on the first page of the New York Herald on June 28th, Huerta had his scandal. Whether a diversion or lame excuse, Huerta’s delegates in Niagara immediately rejected any involvement and even asserted that the questionable correspondence had been offered to them for $100,000. Naturally, they claimed that they did not take the offer for ethical reasons. They also refused to disclose who offered the papers to them.

The Hopkins papers revealed the extent to which American investors fronted by Pierce and Flint had been involved in the Mexican Revolution. Not much of the overall story should have been a surprise. For years American newspapers had reported on the financial dealings of the Maderos with Wall Street. When after President Madero’s murder the rest of the family fled to the U.S., their support for Carranza was public knowledge. However, what made the Hopkins papers so combustible was the undeniable link between major parts of the U.S. government, oil and railroad interests headed by Flint and Pierce, and certain factions within the Constitutionalists headed by Pancho Villa. Sommerfeld defended the content and wrote that the letters told “the naked truth” and showed “ardent and intelligent support for the Constitutionalist cause.”

However, the appearance of impropriety was undeniable. While John Lind, President Wilson's special envoy to Mexico, officially negotiated in April 1914 with Carranza to bring about the Niagara Falls conference, he simultaneously represented the U.S. oil and railroad interests. The revelation of Hopkins' papers thus seriously undermined the Wilson administration’s attempt to be an "honest broker" on behalf of Mexico.  The exposé suggested also a second, less favorable picture of the Carranza government. The mere fact of Carranza corresponding freely with Hopkins and Pierce seemed to suggest that Carranza was willing to sell Mexico’s infrastructure and natural resources to American finance if they helped him win the revolution. In a sense, these revelations threatened to reduce Carranza to the level of Porfirio Diaz whose sell-out had precipitated the revolution. Carranza would not let this stand and quickly issued a categorical denial of his government ever having accepted any financing from U.S. interests.

Like a pack of rats scurrying for cover, Hopkins, Pierce, Flint, Carranza, Cabrera, Vasconselos, Lind, Garrison, and Bryan all voiced public denials of ever having known anyone or dealt with anyone of the group. Only two parties smiled through the show: Senators Smith and Fall who loved to see the Wilson administration tumble, and Huerta’s representatives in Niagara who only had to gain from the revelations. The scandal effectively eliminated the easy access Hopkins had had to cabinet members of the Wilson administration. From now on, he had to work more in the background and send his confidante Felix Sommerfeld to be the public face of Mexican revolutionaries in the United States. This fit perfectly into Sommerfeld's plans. Within a month, the German naval attache in the United States, Karl Boy-Ed asked Sommerfeld to work for him and put him in charge of Germany's clandestine missions concerning Mexico in World War I.

How the World tumbled into the Abyss 100 Years ago

The outline for this immense crime has its beginnings in the days after the assassination of the Austrian crown prince and his wife, exactly 100 years ago, on the 28th of June, 1914. Austria immediately accused Bosnia’s neighboring government of Serbia of having planned the killing. Since tensions between Serbia and Austria had been running high, the international community accepted this accusation as a likely possibility. The remedy the major European governments - France, Great Britain, and Russia - openly supported was for Serbia to apologize and accommodate Austria with whatever reasonable reparations it demanded. Clearly, Serbia had financed nationalistic societies in Bosnia-Herzegovina to fuel a popular uprising against the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s occupation. The crisis seemed minor and its diplomatic resolution easy. Nobody in the days after the double murder envisioned anything but a quick conclusion to the issues at stake. Except one government: The German Empire saw her chance to make strategic use of this crisis. With her allies, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, Germany wanted to advance her drive to control the Balkans, have access to the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, the Dardanelles, and the important trade routes to Egypt, India, and China. That desire put the German Empire squarely into Russia’s sphere of interest. The Czar had long supported Serbia against German and Austrian attempts to take over the Balkans.

On the day after the attack in Sarajevo, the Austrian Foreign Minister, Count Leopold von Berchthold, met with Franz Conrad von Hoetzendorf, the Austrian Chief of the General Staff. Von Hoetzendorf advocated a preemptive war against Serbia and painted the scenario of a quick demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire through revolution if Serbia was not subdued.[1] Von Berchthold rejected the idea. He wanted to find a diplomatic solution, whereby Serbia would give in to strict Austrian demands that would effectively end subversion in Bosnia. On the next day, 30th of June 1914, German Ambassador Heinrich von Tschirschky reported von Berchthold’s attitude towards Serbia to German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. In the margins of the report Emperor Wilhelm II noted ominous comments:

Tschirschky: “I frequently hear expressed here, even among serious people, the wish that at last a final and fundamental reckoning should be had with the Serbs.” William’s comment: “Now or never.”[2] Tschirschky: “I take opportunity of every such occasion to advise quietly but very impressively and seriously against too hasty steps.” William’s comment: “Let Tschirschky be good enough to drop this nonsense! The Serbs must be disposed of, and that right soon!”[3]

On the 2nd of July, Saxony’s envoy in Berlin updated his superior on the diplomatic developments in Berlin. He reported that, according to the German Foreign Office,

 “…a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia will consequently be avoided. Should it break out nonetheless, Bulgaria would immediately declare war on Greece…Russia would mobilize and world war could no longer be prevented. There is renewed pressure from the military for allowing things to drift towards war while Russia is still unprepared, but I don’t think that His Majesty the Kaiser will allow himself to be induced to do this.”[4]

The Saxonian diplomat outlined exactly what happened a month hence! While the German government tried its best to hide the conversations that took place in the halls of its chambers in the beginning of July, this lower level Saxonian official very accurately recorded the echoes of the unspeakable nonchalance with which Germany’s rulers set the world on fire. German historian Immanuel Geiss wrote:

 “After the Kaiser had come down on the side of the General Staff, the political leaders fell in with the Monarch’s commands, in accordance with time-honoured German tradition, and, contrary to their earlier and better judgment, assumed responsibility for the diplomatic implementation of the new line… On 4 July in Berlin all confusion and divergencies [sic] over the course of Imperial policy in the July crisis which was now unfolding were henceforth put aside. The Kaiser had decided on war against Serbia even before he knew whether that was what the Austrians really desired…”[5]

On July 5th, Emperor Wilhelm II sent a message to the Austrian government via her ambassador that in case of war with Russia, Germany would lend full support to her ally.[6] The Austrian ambassador reported to Berchthold on July 6th,

 “With regard to our relations towards Serbia the German Government is of [the] opinion that we must judge what is to be done to clear the course [towards war]; whatever we may decide, we may always be certain that we will find Germany at our side…In the further course of conversation I ascertained that the Imperial Chancellor like his Imperial master considers immediate action on our part as the best solution for our difficulties in the Balkans. From an international point of view he considers the present moment as more favorable than some later time…”[7]

However, the Austrians had more scruples than her German ally would have wished for. The German Minister of War Erich von Falkenhayn confided to the Chief of the General Staff Helmut von Moltke on July 5th that he had little faith in Austria’s willingness to jump off the cliff. “The Chancellor [von Bethmann Hollweg]…appears to have as little faith as I [Falkenhayn] do that the Austrian Government is really in earnest…”[8] The biggest stepping stone in Germany’s efforts to coax her ally into a world war was Count von Tisza, the Hungarian prime minister. He refused to have Austria-Hungary be pushed into war and insisted that a list of demands be drafted to the Serbian government. Only if these demands were not met, would he agree to further escalation of the crisis.[9] The German emperor commented on Count von Tisza’s attitude with a quote taken from his most famous ancestor, Frederick the Great: “I am against all councils of war and conferences, since the more timid party always has the upper hand.”[10] Worse for the German urgency, Austria-Hungary required a minimum of sixteen days to mobilize.[11]

If there were any doubts as to what would happen in case of a war with Russia, the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey dispersed those on July 9th. He told the German ambassador to Great Britain in no uncertain terms that England would not “be found on the side of the aggressors in the event of continental complications.”[12] Secretary Grey’s statement was ambivalent. Would England join the continental powers in a war against Germany? The German government interpreted the comment as England’s intention to remain neutral in case of a continental war. Albert Ballin, the director of the HAPAG (Hamburg-Amerikanische-Paketfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft), tried to clarify the British attitude in case of war for the German government. Between July 23rd and 27th, Ballin attended meetings with Secretary Grey and Winston Churchill among others and reported back to his friend, Emperor Wilhelm II, “Britain has no reason and the highest circles in Britain, it is certain, see no reason for currently preparing for the event that Britain has to take part actively in an armed conflict.”[13] As a result Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg and Foreign Secretary von Jagow actively pursued “localization” as a course of action. Localization was the insane belief that, since Britain would be neutral and France “burdened at the present time with all sorts of troubles,” the intended strike against Serbia would remain a bilateral conflict.[14] Russia, von Bethmann Hollweg believed, would not risk a war with Germany if the other great powers of Europe remained on the sidelines. The utter misinterpretation of the international situation, unless wonton, allows only one conclusion: von Bethmann Hollweg, the chain-smoking head of the German government in those hot days of the Berlin summer, seemingly suffered from delusions. Emperor Wilhelm II astutely remarked in the margins of an Austrian telegram to Foreign Secretary von Jagow, “Austria must become preponderant in the Balkans as compared with the little ones, and at Russia’s expense…”[15] On July 24th, Sir Edward Grey told the German ambassador in no uncertain terms “that a war between Austria and Serbia cannot be localized.”[16]

On the afternoon of July 23rd, timed so that French President Raymond Poincaré and his Prime Minister René Viviani were on the way back from a state visit to Russia, the Austrian ambassador submitted an ultimatum to the Serbian government. [17] The ultimatum had been drafted with input and agreement from Berlin. Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg, Secretary von Jagow and his aides pushed Austrian officials to design the wording so that it would be unacceptable to Serbia.[18] The Hungarian prime minister and last voice of reason in the Austro-Hungarian cabinet meetings, Count von Tisza, had caved under pressure. The final version submitted to Serbia demanded a cessation of Pan-Slav propaganda, including the shutting down of any publication and organization that promoted such. Specifically Austria wanted the “Narodna Odbrana” (National Defense) outlawed. This Serbian organization operated in Bosnia spreading anti-Austrian propaganda. Its paramilitary wing, the “Black Hand,” also engaged in terrorism and was thought to have planned and executed the assassination. Serbia was to dismiss any personnel, military or civilian, involved in subversion against Austria. Any propaganda in Serbian school curricula and textbooks had to disappear. Serbia should initiate a judicial inquiry against anyone who participated in the assassination plot. The Austro-Hungarian Empire would send prosecutors to participate in the legal proceedings. Austria also demanded the arrest of two Serbian officials who were allegedly implicated. Serb officials should further prevent the smuggling of arms and explosives across its borders to Bosnia. Specific border officials that had been implicated should be dismissed and tried. Serbia had forty-eight hours to respond.[19]

Serbia, after an initial shock, surprised the world when she responded to the ultimatum in a spirit of cooperation. Under diplomatic pressure from France, England, and Russia, Serbia agreed to all Austrian demands except for two, which flagrantly violated Serbian sovereignty.

 “As far as the cooperation in this investigation of specially delegated officials of the I. and R. Government is concerned, this cannot be accepted, as this is a violation of the constitution and of criminal procedure. Yet in some cases the result of the investigation might be communicated to the Austro-Hungarian officials … The Royal Government confesses that it is not clear about the sense and the scope of that demand of the I. and R. Government which concerns the obligation on the part of the Royal Serbian Government to permit the cooperation of officials of the I. and R. Government on Serbian territory, but it declares that it is willing to accept every cooperation which does not run counter to international law and criminal law, as well as to the friendly and neighbourly relations.”[20]

Sir Edward Grey as well as other European leaders expected the Serbian response to satisfy Austria. Serbia even signaled the day after her response that certain points in the response to Austria could be modified to further accommodate the complete acceptance of the demands.

 “Sir Edward Grey to the German Ambassador.

July 25, 1914.

Dear Prince Lichnowsky

I enclose a forecast that I have just received of the Servian reply. (1) It seems to me that it ought to produce a favourable impression at Vienna, but it is difficult for anybody but an ally to suggest to the Austrian Government what view they should take of it.

I hope that if the Servian reply when received in Vienna corresponds to this forecast, the German Government may feel able to influence the Austrian Government to take a favourable view of it.

Yours sincerely,

E. GREY.” 

An Austrian rejection of the Serbian reply signaled to the rest of Europe what indeed was the case: The whole crisis had been a pretext and, as Sir Edward Grey told the German ambassador on the 27th of July, “Austria was only seeking an excuse for crushing Serbia. And thus that Russia and Russian influences in the Balkans were to be struck at through Serbia.”[22]

Austria not only rejected the reply, but did so without even reading it. Scanning the document, Austrian ambassador to Belgrade, Giesl, without further consultation broke off diplomatic relations, got on the train, and entered Austrian territory that same evening.[23] Already that afternoon, the Serbian army had mobilized along the Austro-Hungarian border and begun to evacuate Belgrade, which was in shooting range from across the border. Austria mobilized the next day, egged on by the German emperor who wanted hostilities to begin immediately. Great Britain, however, did not give up on her efforts to save the world from plunging into war. Not realizing the extent to which Germany was pushing the war, Sir Edward Grey asked Wilhelm II to intervene with Austria in order to win participation in an international mediation process. Germany submitted the request to Vienna, however, included was a commentary asking Austria not to react.[24]

While the British foreign secretary tried his best to prevent the imminent “conflagration,” the last real chance to maintain peace came from an unlikely quarter. The man who had directed his cabinet to create a world war, who had pushed the Austrian emperor to be decisive and unyielding, now got cold feet. On July 28th, in a handwritten note to Foreign Secretary von Jagow, Emperor Wilhelm II admitted: “I am convinced that on the whole the wishes of the Danube Monarchy have been acceded to. The few reservations that Serbia makes in regard to individual points could, according to my opinion, be settled by negotiation.”[25] The grandson of Queen Victoria, the cousin of Czar Nicholas, the man who had fired Chancellor Prince Bismarck, had set Europe on fire and now, as the flames shot up into the sky, he began to see the inevitable existence of his imperial fingerprints on the criminal diplomacy of July 1914. Although it took historical forensics until the 1960s to fully understand the detailed circumstances of the outbreak of the Great War, British, Italian, French, and American diplomats knew the truth. The guilt for the world war lay squarely in the lap of the Austrian and German governments.

On that day, July 28th 1914, the massive armies that had assembled all across Europe took on an unstoppable dynamic. Austria invaded Serbian territory in the morning of that fateful day. Russia mobilized its armies on the next day, two days later full mobilization orders swept through German barracks. On August 1st, Germany declared war against Russia. The ball so aptly described by the Saxonian official barely a month ago now started rolling. France and England joined the war within a week in order to support Russia. Wilhelm’s misgivings had come too late. Still holding out for England’s neutrality Emperor Wilhelm II tried to modify the war planning. He ordered troop deployment on the western front to be halted and to only proceed on the Russian front. Professor Hans Delbrueck, an influential politician, military historian, imperial tutor, and fierce critic of Germany’s war strategy, encapsulated the dynamic of what the emperor had set in motion: “The final war plan … could not be altered... Deployment could not be stopped for technical reasons.”[27] Independent of the diplomatic situation leading up to mobilization, once set in motion, Germany had to attack France first, then Russia. On August 4th, German troops marched through neutral Belgium in order to circumvent the significant French fortifications along the German-French border. The attack plan unreeled statically.

The Schlieffen Plan, Germany’s war plan that formed the basis for a European war scenario with two fronts, proved to be fatally flawed. General Field Marshall Count Alfred von Schlieffen had developed his plan in 1905 as Chief of the General Staff. In its basic outline, von Schlieffen constructed a scenario in which Germany defeated France in a “Blitzkrieg” by outflanking her defending army along the Rhine. The plan called for the violation of Belgian and Dutch neutrality. The German forces were to march through Belgium into northern France and cut the critical supply lines to the North Sea ports. At the same time, a smaller portion of the German army would secure the eastern front while Russia mobilized.

The two main prerequisites for this war plan to work were British neutrality and the element of surprise that was to prevent France from stopping the German advance while Russia took her time to mobilize. Neither of these prerequisites fell into place. As a result of the Austro-Hungarian squabbles with Serbia, Russia partially mobilized on the 28th of July, three days before German mobilization. On August 4th, England declared war against Germany as a result of Germany’s violation of Belgium’s borders. Von Schlieffen, who had died in 1913, must have turned in his grave. The diplomatic work to prepare his war scenario had utterly failed. Wilhelm II and his military advisers received bogus information from Albert Ballin, Ambassador Prince Lichnowsky, Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg, and Foreign Secretary von Jagow with respect to England’s resolve to not let Germany conquer Central Europe. Britain did join the Entente powers France and Russia, while an important German ally, Italy, bailed, and declared neutrality. Belgium offered serious resistance and slowed the German advance to a crawl. On the Russian front, Germany scored impressive victories in the first weeks of the war but none of the battles were decisive. The Russian armies kept up the pressure on Germany. The worst-case scenario, a two-frontal war with stagnant lines, had become a reality within weeks of Germany’s declarations of war against both France and Russia.

This is not the only interpretation of how the world plunged into war. Some have argued that all nations simply "stumbled" into war. Others have blamed the Russian Empire for having mobilized its armies, thus forcing the hands of Germany. Maybe we will never know for sure how it happened, which, in itself opens the possibility that we might once more "stumble." Whether the German Emperor and his chancellor precipitated the tragic turn of events, or whether recklessness, stupidity, arrogance, or greed characterized the leaders of the great powers in July 1914, which made it possible that a world indeed stumbled into the abyss, it does not really matter. What matters is that at the very least we all, responsible citizens of the world try to understand what happened, and make sure when leaders are elected, that the tragedy of July 1914 will never be allowed to repeat itself. 

[1] Geiss, July 1914, p. 64 as quoted from Conrad von Hoetzendorf’s Memoires, Vol. IV, pp. 33.

[2] Geiss, July 1914, p. 64, Tschirschky to Bethmann Hollweg, Report 212, June 30, 1914.

[3] Geiss, July 1914, p. 65, Tschirschky to Bethmann Hollweg, Report 212, June 30, 1914.

[4] Geiss, July 1914, p. 68, Lichtenau to Vitzthum, Report 1045, July 2, 1914. The attitude of the military is documented in entry from the diary of Georg Alexander von Müller (December 8, 1912). Bundesarchiv fuer Militaergeschichte, Freiburg, Barch N 159/4 Fol. 169-171. In this meeting Tirpitz, Moltke, and Heeringen discussed the inevitability of a two frontal war against France-England in the west and Russia in the east.

[5] Geiss, July 1914, pp. 62-63.

[6] The so-called blank check. See Die Österreichisch-Ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, hrsg. vom Staatsamt für Äußeres in Wien,  National-Verlag, Berlin, 1923, Telegram 237, Count Szögyény to Count Berchtold, July 5, 1914.

[7]{C} Die Österreichisch-Ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, Count Szögyény to Count Berchtold, July 6, 1914.

[8] Geiss, July 1914, p. 78, Falkenhayn to Moltke, July 5, 1914.

[9]{C} Die Österreichisch-Ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, Ministerrat für gemeinsame Angelegenheiten, July 7, 1914.

[10] Geiss, July 1914, p. 108, Tschirschky to Jagow, July 10, 1914.

[11] Geiss, July 1914, p. 103, Tschirschky to Jagow, July 8, 1914.

[12] Geiss, July 1914, p. 104, Lichnowsky to Bethmann Hollweg, July 9, 1914.

[13] As quoted in Johannes Gerhardt, Albert Ballin, Hamburg University Press, Hamburg, 2010.

[14] Geiss, July 1914, p. 118, Bethmann Hollweg to Roedern, July 16, 1914.

[15] Geiss, July 1914, p. 181, Tschirschky to Jagow, #101, July 24, 1914.

[16] Geiss, July 1914, p. 216, Minutes of Clerk, Crowe, Nicolson and Grey on the German note of 21/24 July, July 25, 1914.

[17] The return trip via Sea route took the two most important members of the French government out of communication until July 29th, the day after the Austrian declaration of war against Serbia. Only on July 25th at a brief stop in Sweden was Poincare able to give more detailed instructions to his cabinet.

[18] Geiss, July 1914, p. 134.

[19] Die Österreichisch-Ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, Count Berchtold to Freiherrn von Giesl in Belgrad, July 20, 1914.

[20] Die Österreichisch-Ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, Note der königlich serbischen Regierung vom 12./25. Juli 1914, July 25, 1914.

[21] G.P. Gooch, D. Litt, and Harold Temperley, editors, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, Vol. XI: The Outbreak of War: Foreign Office Documents, June 28th-August 4th, 1914, His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1926, Grey to Lichnowsky, July 25, 1914.

[22] Geiss, July 1914, p. 238, Lichnowsky to Jagow, Telegram #164, July 27, 1914.

[23] Die Österreichisch-Ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, Freiherr von Giesl to Count Berchtold, July 25, 1914.

[24] Die Österreichisch-Ungarischen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, Count Szögyény to Count Berchtold, July 27, 1914.

[25] Geiss, July 1914, p. 256, Wilhelm II to Jagow, July 28, 1914.

[26] Dr. Delbrueck tutored to the son of the Prussian crown prince, Prince Waldemar from 1874 to 1879.

[27] Hans Delbrück, Arden Bucholz ed., Delbrück's modern military history, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 1997, pp. 25-26.

The Ouster of Usurper President Huerta - Fighting for Spoils

The battle of the Constitutionalists against the usurper president Victoriano Huerta dragged on from the spring of 1913 to July 1914. The opposition to the man who had come to power over the dead bodies of the democratically elected president, vice-president, and influential members of the Madero administration such as Gustavo Madero and Abraham Gonzalez, had fought a bloody and drawn out campaign for over two years. Among the Constitutionalist generals Pancho Villa stood out as the most powerful with an army close to 40,000 strong. With him was one of the most brilliant military strategists of Mexico, Felipe Ángeles. Ángeles had been a federal commander, then switched to the Madero camp in 1911. In the coup d'etat, the Mexican general remained loyal to President Madero, which earned him arrest and detention. In the summer of 1913, he joined the opposition forces under Venustiano Carranza. He rose to Secretary of War. However, as a rivalry and competition for military supremacy between Carranza and Pancho Villa developed, Ángeles threw his lot with Villa. While the differences between Villa and Carranza simmered below the surface as the common enemy Huerta fought his last, desperate battles, the demise of Huerta brought the split between the two Constitutionalist factions to the surface.

Not wanting the situation in Mexico deteriorate into chaos after Huerta's ouster, President Wilson tried to mediate the situation in an ABC power conference at Niagara in May and June 1914. In a series of secret meetings paralleling the Niagara Conference the Wilson administration and the forces opposing Huerta decided on the modalities of the takeover of Mexico City. Participants included lobbyist and representative of Carranza in the U.S., Charles Douglas, the Constitutionalist ambassador in the U.S., Rafael Zubaran Capmany, and Carranzista Foreign Secretary Luis Cabrera, who joined in the end of May after his return from Spain. Felix A. Sommerfeld and Sherburne G. Hopkins officially negotiated on the Constitutionalists’ behalf, but in reality represented Villa’s faction. The Wilson administration participated through Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan in Washington, Special U.S. envoy John Lind in Veracruz, and special envoy George Carothers who was embedded with Villa. Zubaran Capmany staunchly upheld Carranza’s stance of obstructing any U.S. attempt to mingle in Mexico’s internal affairs. As a result Secretary Bryan refused to talk to him directly and sent his communications via his personal friend turned Constitutionalist attorney Charles Douglas instead. Manuel Esteva, the Mexican Consul General in New York, who had been a personal friend of Sommerfeld for some time, as well as Enrique Llorente who Sommerfeld had recently established in New York to head the Villa junta, complemented Sommerfeld’s team. According to the German agent, the takeover of Mexico City would be accomplished in a matter of weeks through a three-pronged assault. Once Huerta was gone, either General Villar (who had been wounded in the Decena Tragica defending Madero) or General Ángeles would take over the provisional government as dictator.

Felipe Angeles and Rafael Zubaran Capmany

It seems that both Hopkins and Sommerfeld floated the idea of Ángeles becoming provisional President and dictator either as a trial balloon or without checking with the home office. Carranza’s reaction was swift. On June 20th 1914, when he heard rumors of Ángeles’ potential ascendancy to power, Carranza fired the general as his Secretary of War. Most Mexican military leaders including some of Villa’s own generals opposed Ángeles potential candidacy, because he was a former federal officer. Villa and Ángeles quickly told their U.S. power brokers to retract the idea. In a telegram published in the New York Times on June 21st, Villa's financial agent Lazaro De La Garza instructed Sommerfeld to “…categorically deny the statements that Gen. Villa has issued a manifesto proclaiming Gen. Angeles First Chief. Therefore it is completely false.” With or without Ángeles at the helm, Sommerfeld explained to German naval attache Karl Boy-Ed that after initiating changes in the Mexican Constitution, the provisional president would call for elections through which Carranza would be elected President. The “US government knows this plan and supports it,” Sommerfeld reported to Boy-Ed. “The plan” that the German described to Boy-Ed realistically did not aim for the election of Carranza to become President of Mexico. The allusion to “dictatorship,” and “changes in the constitution” allows for an interpretation of what Mexico would look like after Huerta if Hopkins and Sommerfeld had had their way: Carranza would never make it into a presidential contest. Villa and his huge military colossus would control the government through a puppet president named Felipe Ángeles. It would not take long for exactly that scenario to take shape with a minor change of personnel. On the 6th of November 1914, Villa chose General Eulalio Gutierrez Ortiz instead of Ángeles as his puppet. Hopkins and Sommerfeld had devised and executed yet another plan for Mexico - this time to benefit Pancho Villa the man they thought was Madero’s rightful political heir.

The Occupation of Veracruz April 1914 - A Bungled Mess?

The German HAPAG steamer Ypiranga left Havana on the morning of April 21st 1914 and was approaching the Mexican coastline for a routine stop at Veracruz, the largest port in Mexico, three hundred miles to the south of Tampico. Tensions between the United States and Mexico were high. On April 9th 1914, Mexican authorities briefly detained nine sailors of the USS Dolphin. Although the Mexican commander immediately released the sailors, the U.S. government, anxious to support the Constitutionalists ousting President Huerta, demanded a formal apology or else. When the Ypiranga approached Veracruz on the morning of April 21st, virtually the entire U.S. Atlantic fleet had been summoned to the Mexican coastline. Congress had authorized the use of force the day before. Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, and Secretary of State Bryan roused the President in the West Wing at 2:00 a.m. that fateful day. The American consul at Veracruz, William W. Canada, had transmitted a telegram to Secretary Bryan, informing him that the German ship carried arms and ammunition for Huerta.

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The HAPAG Steamer SS Ypiranga

The American President ordered the occupation of the customs house of Veracruz that morning to prevent the landing of the munitions. An order to that effect went to Admiral Fletcher:

"Early on April 21, 1914, General [Joaquin] Mass [sic], the Mexican military commandant, was notified that US forces intended to take charge of the Custom House and was urged to ‘offer no resistance but to withdraw in order to avoid loss of life and property of the people of Vera Cruz [sic].’ He, for the most part complied, but the commander of the Naval Academy and unorganized pockets of individuals offered resistance. Ships of the Atlantic Fleet started bombardment of Veracruz. By 11:30 AM the first detail of 787 soldiers, of whom 502 were marines, landed and seized the custom[s] house, and an urban battle ensued in which many civilians are said to have taken part. The defense of the city also included the release of prisoners held at the feared San Juan de Ulua prison. In the meantime, the building of the Naval Academy was being bombarded by the USS Prairie. American troops occupied most of the town by that evening. The USS San Francisco and USS Chester continued the bombardment of the Naval Academy building until the following day.”

Nineteen American soldiers died and seventy-two were injured. The Mexican forces lost slightly less than two hundred, most of them cadets of the naval academy. The civilian population, who had resisted in concert with the federal defenders, continued to snipe at U.S. patrols, which forced Admiral Fletcher to impose martial law on the city. Brigadier General Frederick Funston arrived within a week and organized the long-term occupation of the Mexican city.

If the reason for the bombardment and occupation of Veracruz had been to prevent the landing of the Ypiranga, the operation was hopelessly bungled. The first mishap was that the Ypiranga was not at the docks when the marines landed. While the cargo remained on the German steamer it could not legally be seized. Once unloaded the arms would have been under the authority of the custom’s house. Seizing the custom’s house then would have brought the arms under the control of the Americans. The ownership question thus would be a dispute between Mexico and the U.S., not Germany and the U.S. The timing of the invasion, namely landing troops before the Ypiranga had discharged her cargo, botched the seizing of the arms. When she finally approached the harbor around 1:00 p.m., without having been notified of the American action, a U.S. navy captain boarded the HAPAG steamer and ordered it to drop anchor and wait. Unaware that it was his ship that apparently caused the landing of marines on Mexican soil, the captain of the Ypiranga, Karl Bonath, cabled to the German naval cruiser SMS Dresden, anchored in Tampico, and requested instructions. Captain Erich Köhler of the Dresden had no idea about the U.S. interest in the Ypiranga freight either. All he knew was that after clearing her freight, the Ypiranga would be assigned to take on German refugees. Minister von Hintze had asked the German naval authorities to provide a ship in case of war so that German citizens could be evacuated from Mexico. Captain Köhler of the Dresden therefore requisitioned the steamer Ypiranga for the German navy.

When, on the 29th of May, the Ypiranga cleared her 1,500 cases of rifles, 15 million cartridges, and various other munitions in Puerto Mexico, one hundred and fifty miles south of Veracruz, emotions ran high. Also discharging cargo in Puerto Mexico were the HAPAG steamers Bavaria with a similar consignment and the Kronprinzessin Cecilie with a smaller shipment of arms and ammunition. William F. Buckley testified to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1919, that apparently none other than Carl Heynen, the German representative of HAPAG in Mexico and also a German naval intelligence agent,  desperately tried to prevent the arms to fall into the hands of President Huerta. “…Carl Heynen …called on the chief of port at Veracruz, Captain [Herman O.] Stickney, an unusually obtuse naval officer, and tried to get him to order him, Heynen, or even ask him, not to permit his boat to land the arms and ammunition in question, as Heynen was anxious for an excuse not to obey Huerta’s orders, but this brilliant commander practically ordered Heynen out of his office.” The New York Times seconded Buckley’s claim, “Capt. C. Bonath of the Ypiranga, however, said: ‘The possibility that our cargo might be landed at Puerto Mexico was not new to the Collector [Captain Stickney]. Before clearance to Puerto Mexico was granted to us, I asked him specifically: ‘What would you do if I were compelled [by Huerta] to land these arms at Puerto Mexico?’ To this he made no reply.’”

Besides accelerating the downfall of Huerta, the European governments including Germany supported the U.S. occupation for another, obvious reason: International banks expected the seized customs revenue to be used for paying Mexican coupons. This the Americans did not do. German banker and big investor in Mexico Baron Bleichröder wrote an infuriated letter to the German Foreign Office on June 19th 1914, alleging that the U.S. was stealing the customs revenue that by law had been pledged to Mexico’s debtors. He was right. German-American relations cooled significantly in the wake of the American intervention. All the discussions in contemporary news coverage and in the subsequent historiography characterized Germany as a supporter of Huerta and the reason for the U.S. intervention in Mexico. In reality, the arms were purchased from French, German, and Belgian manufacturers via suspect channels completely outside of German government control. The U.S. could have stopped the shipments through diplomatic or military means but did not. In reality, the reasoning behind the intervention had nothing to do with the arms shipments. Historians have grappled with the fact of how and why the arms of the Ypiranga, Kronprinzessin Cecille, Dania, and Bavaria ended in Huerta’s hands anyway. Sometimes even a historian has to acknowledge that if something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it might just be a duck! By any objective measure, the U.S.’ capture of the customs house in Veracruz was messy in detail but achieved its ends: The U.S. captured the cash register of Mexico’s government, kept the proceeds, and, in taking it away from Huerta (and the other creditors), the Usurper President was done for.

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A Literary Giant Has Left US

There is one literary work that captured me as a teenager and has never left me since. I feel part of the story. I lived this book in a village on the German-German border, seemingly abandoned by a world which had decided in 1945 to create a political division of my country. How was it, I have been asked many times, to grow up 500 yards from the Iron Curtain? We kids knew no different.

We admired the mighty American tanks that came through the village every day. Sometimes, when we celebrated harvest with a great festival, the Americans brought their tanks and we were allowed to climb on them. Once they even brought a helicopter. The people in my village talked about a past we kids could not imagine; about my great uncle being murdered by a communist; about the time when city people scavenged for food on our fields after harvest; about Hitler youth challenging American tanks which promptly shot up the village; about a village less than a mile away that we had never seen; about not being at the very edge of the western world but in the middle of Germany; about the time when the four lane "ghost" autobahn behind our house continued on to a city called Dresden (Great for riding bicycles, though).

A new generation now lives in the village. Kids listen to the elders with astonished faces about a time, when a border with self-shooting machines, dog runs, watch towers with Vopo and Russian soldiers cut the world in half, 500 yards from our houses. Not to mention American tanks and jeeps coming through the village every day.

All I know about this generation, and mine, and the one before, and the one before that is that we had the same names, lived in the same farms, had strange outsiders coming through, and had no impact on the larger world. The First World War started 100 years ago. The Weimar Republic came and went. Famine came and went. The Nazis came and went. The Second World War came and went. The Americans, the Russians all came and went. The border came and went. The village and its people are still there. I lived in one generation of 100 Years of Solitude. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I will miss you but I will never forget that you opened my mind to how I fit into an ever changing world that I cannot control, that is full of magic and wonder, and that doesn't change if you really look close enough, and that's why I study history.

Gateway to Mexico City - The Last Throes of the Usurper Huerta

In March 1914, one hundred years ago, Pancho Villa was reaching the pinnacle of his power. Images of Villa from this time show him in the uniform of a general. His ragged railroad car had given way to a series of cars for himself and his entourage. Constant companions were George Carothers, a diplomatic envoy of the U.S. government (who rode in his own rail car), a film crew, a personal doctor, and a group of foreign correspondents. Villa's Division of the North, an army of 40,000 men, controlled most of Northern Mexico. The might of the Villista army was nothing but astonishing given the fact that merely a year earlier, Villa had crossed the Rio Grande with a handful of companions to fight the murderer of President Francisco I. Madero. The trains not only carried his soldiers, artillery and horses. They also included an advance repair train to fix blown up bridges and ripped up rails. The most modern hospital train that even roused the admiration of the German military attaché Franz von Papen accompanied the soldiers into battle as well. Villa's supply organization was the best of all revolutionary forces. His soldiers donned American made uniforms and recent makes of Mauser 7 mm rifles. His artillery capabilities exceeded that of the federal army with modern Krupp cannon from Germany and captured French guns taken from the federal army. Since Felipe Ángeles, the former chief of the Colegio Militar (Mexico's West Point), had left Carranza's entourage and joined Villa as his chief military adviser, the Army of the North steamrolled the forces of President Victoriano Huerta. Already forced to give up the north of the country, Huerta's federal forces entrenched at Torreon, the strategic railway hub that connected northern and western Mexico with the capital.

On the 16th of March 1914, Villa’s army boarded the trains in Chihuahua and headed south. For the second time since 1911, Torreon stood between the revolutionary armies and Mexico City. With Felipe Ángeles in charge, Villa’s forces swooped into Gomez Palacio, severely beating the federal forces. On March 26th, the División Del Norte surrounded Torreon. The battle lasted a full week. Ángeles’ artillery supported 16,000 revolutionary soldiers who pummeled the city with a hail of fire night and day. Especially Villa’s famous night attacks caused the federal defenders to become demoralized and sleep deprived. They defected in droves. On April 2nd the city fell. Huerta had sent six thousand fresh reinforcements to nearby San Pedro de las Colonias to no avail. The newly established federal positions caved and what was left of the Huerta army withdrew to the south. 

The sweeping victories of Villa's army depended to a large degree on supplies from the United States. Felix A. Sommerfeld, who through Sherburne G. Hopkins had contracted with Flint and Company to supply arms and munitions to the Villistas, was in charge of procuring the military supplies. Trainloads of arms and ammunition from Winchester, Remington, and Colt, arrived daily at the Mexican border where Sommerfeld's agents arranged the transfer to Villa's forces. Villa financed the effort with cattle confiscated from the large haciendas of Chihuahua and forced "taxes" from the merchants of towns he controlled. In New York the former head of Villa's treasury, Lazaro De La Garza and three uncles of the slain Mexican President Madero ran the financial organization. In Ciudad Juarez, Villa's brother Hipolito controlled the customs house, gambling joints, and cattle transfers. Despite the best efforts of Villa's supply organization and especially of Sommerfeld not everything went smoothly. Infighting and jealousies disturbed the teamwork. While Villa and his generals celebrated their success, Sommerfeld received severe admonishment from headquarters. Apparently, Flint and Company had sent bad ammunition. On April 14th, Villa ranted to Lazaro De La Garza: 

PLEASE IMMEDIATELY solicit two million Mauser cartridges which must arrive within a short time to proceed with the campaign. I much recommend that you pay attention so that we may find no reason for such poor quality cartridges that Sommerfeld bought. I have lost my troops precisely because of not checking which is indispensable when buying this type of material.

The problems with Sommerfeld’s supplies worsened to the level where Villa was ready to fire him. Instead of De La Garza and the Maderos defending Sommerfeld, they stood by as their team member took fire. The general sent a telegram to De La Garza on May 30th in which he requested someone else to buy munitions. Of course, this was impossible since no one had the connections that the German agent had. The issue came to a head when De La Garza sent a stinging memo to Charles Flint on May 30th and signed it with Sommerfeld’s name:

Wired you yesterday seventy five thousand [.] Be sure goods ordered through Sommerfeld are new and thoroughly guaranteed, as failure of previous ones caused much damage and bad impression, but are giving you another chance to vindicate. – Ship Monday. – F.A. Sommerfeld

The next morning Sommerfeld asked Lazaro De La Garza whether he was out of his mind when he sent the earlier note to Charles Flint: De La Garza’s response has not been preserved. 

You telegraphed Flint and Company yesterday that you are giving them another chance to vindicate themselves. I want to say that Flint has never sold us such merchandise before. Flint is a house of the highest standing and our friend who have [sic] given us advise [sic] and assistance many times. Your telegram is absolutely unjust and therefore I beg you to telegraph Flint telling them that your telegram was sent by mistake. F. A. Sommerfeld.

However, the shipments through Flint and Company from U.S. manufacturers proceeded unabashedly. Sommerfeld remained at his post. Within the next three months the embattled President of Mexico, Huerta, found himself thoroughly defeated and heading into exile to Spain.

Horst von der Goltz, Sabotage Agent - Sommerfeld Spy

Horst von der Goltz, a colorful German secret service agent became known in the United States in 1916 as a saboteur. Von der Goltz alias Franz Wachendorf went to Buffalo, New York with three other sabotage agents in the fall of 1914. The German agents were armed with two suitcases of dynamite and had orders to blow up the Welland Canal linking Lake Ontario with Lake Erie. The destruction of the locks in this canal would have created havoc for the downstream communities but might have delayed the deployment of Canadian expeditionary forces to Europe. The plot fell apart mainly because the Canadian military had thoroughly secured the locks since they had been earlier targets of sabotage. Von der Goltz in particular chickened out and returned to New York. He asked his superior, German military attaché and future German chancellor Franz von Papen, to provide funds for returning to Europe. Von Papen complied. After that the story becomes slightly murky. Von der Goltz wrote in his memoirs that he went to Germany, received new orders and on his way back to the US was picked up by the British. It is far more likely that he never made it to Germany, but gave himself up to British authorities at Falmouth. In any case, von der Goltz returned to the United States in 1916 as a star witness of the prosecution against Franz von Papen and other sabotage agents. Despite his admission of being a German sabotage agent, he never went to prison and, according to historian Barbara Tuchman, spent the rest of his life in New York. 

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As with so many German secret agents in the northern hemisphere in World War I, von der Goltz' career also was closely linked to Felix A. Sommerfeld. As a matter of fact, Sommerfeld directed his activities in 1913 and likely was instrumental in bringing the agent to New York once the war began. Von der Goltz was not the agent's real name but an alias that to this day provokes an angry rebuke from the famous military family of the same name in Germany. Born in Koblenz, Germany in 1884, Franz R. Wachendorf had a German middle class upbringing. It does not seem that he ever studied or acquired a profession. Rather, just like so many of his generation including Sommerfeld, he went to the US to seek his fortune. Just like Sommerfeld he ended up in the US military, from which he, just like Sommerfeld, deserted. In March 1913, as the Mexican Revolution ravaged Northern Mexico, the German consul of Chihuahua, Otto Kueck (on the run from Pancho Villa in El Paso) sent Wachendorf to Sommerfeld who assigned him on missions for the Mexican secret service. What exactly Wachendorf did is unknown other than the highly inflated claims of exploding locomotives, haranguing stories of enemy capture and flight in his memoirs. As soon as the war broke out in August 1914, Sommerfeld moved to New York for his wartime assignments. There he reported to Karl Boy-Ed, the German naval attache, and worked closely with the German agent and arms dealer Captain Hans Tauscher. At the same time, Wachendorf also showed up in New York. Tauscher, clearly in touch with Wachendorf, organized the explosives for the Welland Canal mission and the rest is history.

Well, almost. There is one unanswered question: When did Wachendorf switch loyalties to England, or did he? An intriguing theory that has not been verified through English archival documents is that Wachendorf indeed was a British secret agent from the get go who infiltrated the German naval intelligence as early as 1913. Just a theory. All the known puzzle pieces, the approach of Sommerfeld in 1913, the abandoned Welland Canal plot, the subsequent ratting out of the entire German secret service in the US, and his staying out of prison after the US joined Great Britain in the war make perfect sense if Wachendorf indeed worked for British naval intelligence.

Fuer Freiheit und Recht by Arnold Krumm-Heller

C. M. Mayo, a wonderful friend, incredible writer, and intellectual power house, found this forgotten little book by Arnold Krumm-Heller called Fuer Freiheit und Recht: Meine Erlebnisse aus dem Mexikanischen Buergerkriege (For Liberty and Justice: My Adventures in the Mexican Civil War). Krumm-Heller was a colorful personality, Grand Wizard of Mexico's Freemasons, German agent, and author of dozens of books. 

Arnold Krumm-Heller in the uniform of a Mexican Army Colonel, 1915

Fuer Freiheit und Recht seems to have been written and published in Germany in 1916 as a propaganda piece targeting the German government to embrace Venustiano Carranza. In 1916, Carranza sent Krumm-Heller to Germany as "military attache" in Berlin. In reality he became Carranza's Liaison Officer to the German government. Originally, Krumm-Heller was supposed to stay one year. On the way there, the British arrested him. It took major international wrangling to release Krumm-Heller to continue to Germany. The British vowed to arrest him as a German spy if they caught him again. As a result, he remained in Germany for the duration of the war, offering his services to the General Staff.

The book starts with the history of Mexico leading up to Francisco Madero. The author describes in detail the reasons Diaz fell. He cites corruption, the loss of popular support of the Cientificos, and the "Latifundienuebel" (the hancienda cancer) as reasons for the Revolution. He decries the lack of a non-clerical legal system, such as the fact that divorce was illegal. Krumm-Heller emphasizes the influence of Germans on Mexican history, the works of Alexander von Humboldt (which he translated into Spanish) as positive, and the speculation of German businessmen taking "millions" out of the country as negative. He particularly mentions a "certain Rattner [sic], who claimed to be German, but was in fact Russian." Abraham Ratner was Huerta's arms procurement chief in the U.S. It is a great example of the propagandist nature of the book if you notice that people like von Humboldt and Ratner are mentioned in the same paragraph. In the last paragraph of the chapter Krumm-Heller writes: "I see in Militarism the highest moral state of a peoples' education and dedication for the holiest mankind owns, his Fatherland." He espouses German militarism as a solution for Mexico's social and educational deficiencies.

In the next chapter Krumm-Heller describes Madero as a Democrat and great political agitator. He marvels at Madero's knack for political organizing covering a country "four times as large as the German Empire." Small wonder, he adds, that the people wanted Madero to run for president. The corruption of Diaz' dictatorship and Madero's genius which was supported by Mexicans of all classes, down to the smallest "Indian villages" made his eventual victory inescapable. Krumm-Heller admires Madero. He describes him: "Of small frame, robust physique, neither fat nor skinny, the President radiated the energy of youth. His movements were easy and nervous; the round, brown eyes shot rays of sympathetic light. The face round, features rough, the beard thick and black, cut in angles, he always smiled with dignity. In his face thoughts mirrored that found expression in his gestures. Depending on whether he thought about something, talked or was silent, whether he walked or stood, listened or interrupted, he moved his arms, fixed his focus or looked into the distance and always smiled, smiled without fail. But his smile is good, deep, free, magnanimous; a smile the exact opposite of that of Taft. It was the gesture of a whole regime that went down with him." p. 25.

From the description of a Christ-like Madero Krumm-Heller goes straight into the Decena Tragica which he personally experienced. Not a sentence about the short-lived government of Madero. He describes the horrible carnage and destruction of the beloved capital of Mexico. He does not go into much detail on how close he was to the president and his staff at the time. He does mention "my friend S.," which might have been Felix A. Sommerfeld, fellow German agent and personal friend of Francisco Madero. As a matter of fact Krumm-Heller was a member of the Mexican secret service and reported to Sommerfeld. After Madero's murder, Krumm-Heller has to flee (an indication of his true occupation). In the next chapter it becomes clear who the only ideological heir to Madero could be: Venustiano Carranza. Krumm-Heller reproduces in detail  the entire Constitutionalist program. Carranza is presented as a courageous senator who fought Porfirio Diaz, and as a governor was beloved by his people. He "wanted to slay the serpent of discord and destroy together with Villa the excesses of the conservative party. He kept in mind that he had to realize Madero's ideals and thereby save Mexico." p. 89.

Krumm-Heller's adventures take him into the camp of the Constitutionalists. His reasons are encapsulated in this quote: "Madero had been arrested, and I received orders [from Sommerfeld?] to make the last arrangements for his departure on a Cuban warship, and thus save his life. As I described earlier, these inhumane power mongers did not keep their word and assassinated Madero; my beloved great friend, with whom I was connected spiritually through an eight year long friendship, based on our common studies." p. 93. In Guanajuato Krumm-Heller joines the Constitutionalist army as a propagandist "to urge the residents of Guanajuato  to join us with fiery speeches, and help the cause of justice and common good to victory, and not rest until the murderers and traitors who deposed the president and apostle of freedom Francisco I. Madero are getting their just punishment." p. 95. As a result of his activities Huertistas capture him  and he is condemned to death. According to Krumm-Heller he escapes after a harrowing mock execution and month-long incarceration. The savior is Eugen Motz, who intervenes as the Chilean Vice Consul. Supposedly, Krumm-Heller had refused the help of the German envoy. While the arrest of Krumm-Heller is documented, his stay of execution and release did result from the intervention of the German government. After being released, Krumm-Heller goes into exile to New York where he starts working as a doctor. He describes in detail how he despises American culture. He writes: "At a European court high class guests came to a party. Diplomats and princes showed off their medals. Also an American soap-prince found a way to smuggle himself into the gathering. On his chest he wore a huge, unusual looking, shining star. All the guests were wondering what kind of medal this could be. The host, driven by his curiosity finally had the courage to ask: 'Excuse me, which country bestowed this medal on you?' The Yankee dryly but full of self esteem replied: That is my own invention! Typical American! If an American does not reach the high goals of his desires in a comfortable and natural way, he moves ahead with force." p. 115. 

Krumm-Heller moves on to become a physician in General Alvaro Obregon's army. He lauds the typical Mexican soldier as brave, disciplined, and tough, but emphasizes that it is critical "to keep the flanks open, otherwise he will loose his composure."  He describes among many battles which he witnessed, the occupation of Veracruz and the fact that the German cruiser HMS Dresden saved thousands of American citizens in Tampico. As a matter of fact, in 1915 Captain Koehler of the Dresden indeed received a commendation from the American president for his actions in Tampico at the time of the Veracruz invasion. When the Constitutionalists conquer Mexico City in the summer of 1914, Krumm-Heller chooses not to participate in the lavish festivities but rather goes to the grave of his fallen friend and idol, Francisco Madero. 

The rest of the book details the struggles of the Constitutionalists against the corrupt forces of Conservatism, to which also Pancho Villa had fallen prey. Krumm-Heller does not describe his crucial role as chief of artillery in the battle of Celaya and as military adviser to Alvaro Obregon who started using German military tactics effectively against Villa. Rather, the author describes the heroism of Obregon, who, after his arm had been severed, "still bleeding" encourages his troops to attack. Krumm-Heller notably comes back to the United States in 1915 to run Carranza's propaganda effort in the Southwest. His "lecture tour" coincides with violent unrest in the border region under the Pan de San Diego. As Carranza takes power and becomes the provisional, de facto President of Mexico, things are on the mend. Krumm-Heller lists in detail agrarian reform laws, labor protection, stabilizing the monetary system and other actions that end the need for revolution. He describes in the chapter "the great men of Mexico," Obregon, Cabrera, Aguilar, Rojas, Azcona, and the Mexican ambassador Jose Almaraz Harris who wrote the introduction to the book. Finally, he writes an appeal to the Germans in Mexico who he admonishes to support the Carranza presidency and participate in the flowering of Mexico that will undoubtedly be the result of the new regime. 

Krumm-Heller sent one of the first copies of this book to the German Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg. Reportedly, Foreign Secretary Zimmermann read the book and "with reservations as a result of some language issues" passed it on to Emperor Wilhelm II to read.

Krumm-Heller and the Plan de San Diego

In the summer of 1915, while the United States reeled from the devastating labor strikes in Bridgeport and elsewhere in the industrial centers of the North, the Mexican border suddenly caught on fire as well. The deteriorating situation in Mexico stemmed from what became known as the Plan de San Diego and the revolución de Texas. Issued in the town of San Diego, Texas in January 1915 the Plan de San Diego called for an uprising of the Mexican-American populations in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California against the “Yankee tyranny.” Among other stipulations the manifesto included two passages that American officials who first saw a copy of the plan in the end of January 1915. Objective number 5 read: “It is strictly forbidden to hold prisoners …they shall be shot immediately without any pretext.” Number 6: “Every foreigner [i.e. any non-Chicano in the states to be liberated from the Yankee tyranny] who shall be found armed and cannot prove his right to carry arms, shall be summarily executed…” Number 7: “Every North American [sic] over sixteen years of age shall be put to death…” While local sheriffs carefully watched the mood among the Mexican-American population, not much happened as a result of the plan until July 1915. Historian Trinidad Gonzales traced a second separatist movement that succeeded the Plan de San Diego, called the revolución de Texas. The second effort of Mexican-American minorities along the Mexican border to start a separatist movement featured similar goals as the Plan de San Diego, and might have had the exact same intellectual root just with new organizers. Within weeks of President Wilson putting pressure on the Mexican revolutionary factions in his ultimatum on June 2nd 1915, “bands of outlaws” raided ranches throughout the lower Rio Grande Valley. In the end of July the first American, an 18-year-old farmhand, died from the bullets of a Chicano raider. During July and August hundreds of attacks occurred, some of which had nothing to do with the revolución de Texas but undoubtedly took advantage of the situation to settle old scores. Short of personnel and reluctant to get involved the U.S. army reluctantly reinforced the overwhelmed Texas Rangers and local law enforcement authorities by September. Raiders not only robbed banks, shops, and ranches but also blew up railroad bridges and cut telegraph lines. The Mexican Revolution finally seemed to be spilling over into U.S. territory in a deadly and disturbing way.

Some American newspapers quickly blamed the disturbances on German agitation. These suspicions seem to have pressured Secretary Lansing and possibly also President Woodrow Wilson to find a solution for stabilizing Mexico as quickly as possible. Lansing wrote in his diary, “Germany does not want one faction dominant in Mexico; therefore we must recognize one faction as dominant in Mexico… It comes down to this: our possible relations with Germany must be our first consideration; and all our intercourse with Mexico must be regulated accordingly.” While German archives did not reveal any obvious financing of the border troubles, evidence suggests that at the very least German agitation contributed to the unrest. While Sommerfeld organized munitions supplies for Villa at the same time he supported the efforts of the U.S. State Department to wrest important concessions from the revolutionary chieftain, a sinister plot developed in South Texas. Colonel Arnold Krumm-Heller, the physician and German agent who had engineered Villa’s most devastating defeat at Celaya, suddenly appeared in free masonry lodges and gatherings of Mexican-Americans around Brownsville, San Antonio, and El Paso between June and August 1915 giving inflammatory anti-American and pro-Carranza speeches. The El Paso Herald reported on June 22nd, 1915, “Dr. Krumm-Heller, formerly professor of literature in the University of Mexico, Will [sic] deliver a lecture Friday night on ‘The Origin of the war in Mexico and the method of pacification by the Mexicans themselves,’ at the old Fraternal Brotherhood hall… No admission is charged to the lectures, which favor neither faction.” The target audience of his “lecture” tour through the Southwest, which started in the middle of June and lasted into August, was mainly German-Americans and Mexican Americans. While supposedly “not favoring” any faction in the revolutionary struggle, Krumm-Heller was a devout Carranzista and fanatic German nationalist. Von Eckardt reported in 1916 to the German Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg, “K. H. [Krumm-Heller] has been whenever possible extremely helpful to Germans throughout the Mexican Revolution until now. Since the beginning of the European war he has engaged tirelessly in propaganda for the German cause through lectures, articles, and leaflets in Spanish, while relentlessly proceeding against the Allies… As Grand Wizard of the Mexican Freemasons (about 20,000 strong) he is influential in all layers of Mexican society… Krumm-Heller reports directly to Carranza. His goal is to support the pro-German tendencies here [in Mexico] and reduce the influence of the Allies in Mexico.” Historian Mark Cronland Anderson traced lavish financial support of Krumm-Heller’s lecture tour to Carranza: Krumm-Heller’s “efforts were successful, and his [propaganda] work apparently did not lack funding [from Carranza].” The financial records of the German legation in Mexico City have been lost. It is therefore not clear when and how much money Krumm-Heller might have received from von Eckardt for his pro-German propaganda. In Mai 1916, von Eckardt confirmed to the German chancellor that “the necessary funds [for a one year assignment in Germany] have been officially made available [by von Eckardt].” Krumm-Heller left no doubt as to his disposition to the U.S., the Mexican Revolution, and his propaganda mission in the Southwest in the summer of 1915.

He wrote in his book Für Freiheit und Recht: Meine Erlebnisse aus dem mexikanischen Bürgerkriege (For Liberty and Justice: My Adventuresin the Mexican Civil War), which was published in Germany in 1916:

“Against my wishes I had to go back to the United States, which I so hated. I got there in the beautiful spring time and luckily into a state [Texas], in which millions of Mexicans, millions of Germans, and fewer American [Anglo] elements were present. Once-in-a-while one finds cities, which are 80 percent German [emphasis in the original]. Nevertheless have the Germans that have settled there wound up in the same dependency as the Mexicans that settled there or have remained there as the original inhabitants [before the U.S. - Mexican war of 1846 to 1848]. As overlords the Americans driven by their boundless need for speculation have succeeded in settling on the once large Mexican haciendas through the creation of the notorious lumber- and land companies. The Germans that had immigrated there received land for colonization under ostensibly favorable conditions. They were promised anything that a settler can dream of. But as a result of the inadequate legal circumstances it was easy for unscrupulous lawyers to add clauses to the contracts that made the settlers utterly dependent. Did one of those inexperienced hapless devils have difficulties making payments the issue was twisted in such a way that while faking leniency and sympathy he was given extended deadlines. In reality, he was allowed to work a little longer, until in the decisive moment everything was taken away and the land sold a second time, this time for a higher price than before since all the cultivation had already been done making the land arable. Thus the Germans and the Mexicans, or whoever else got caught in the Yankee web, were exploited and driven in many cases to suicide. What else could such a man start, who had lost everything without a way to go back home. Much has been written about these unhealthy speculation deals and the so-called revolutions in these regions are nothing but momentarily flaring acts of revenge that the terrible pressures of these circumstances created.”   

Krumm-Heller’s idea that there was a natural alliance between the German and Mexican populations in the Southwest had little basis in fact. German immigrants in the Southwest had done quite well as merchants, farmers, and craftsmen. The radical, separatist Mexicans called for uprisings, strikes, property destruction, and murder, hardly the type of activities pro-order and law abiding Germans would support. However, the natural alignment of interest existed in the disappointment of German-Americans in the political attitude of the United States versus Germany in the war. As such, German-American companies such as Heyman-Krupp Company, Krakauer, Zork, and Moye, or Degetau and Ketelson, some of the largest arms dealers, merchants, and banks in the region, could possibly be convinced to materially support elements in the Mexican-American community that caused unrest along the border. Helping the German cause in this case certainly was also good for business. 

A key question with regards to the revolución de Texas is whether a deliberate effort of the German government supported it. Two facts stand out in considering this theory. There was a connection between Felix A. Sommerfeld and Arnold Krumm-Heller. Both had been in the inner circle of the slain president of Mexico, Francisco Madero. Krumm-Heller acted as his spiritual adviser, personal physician, and worked in the Mexican secret service in 1912. Felix Sommerfeld, a personal friend of the president, worked first as his chief of staff then as head of the Mexican secret service. Krumm-Heller in all likelihood reported to Sommerfeld. Both Germans reported to the German legation in this time period. It is no accident that when Villa and Carranza split after the ouster of Huerta and started the latest round of civil war, Sommerfeld stayed with Villa, while Krumm-Heller stayed close to Carranza. As German envoy von Eckardt reported to his superiors in 1916, Krumm-Heller performed valuable services as a staff member of Carranza. Karl Boy-Ed reported the same about Sommerfeld. While no direct link can be established between Sommerfeld and Krumm-Heller, Sommerfeld traveled to El Paso throughout the summer, first to direct the fifteen million cartridge order for Villa, then to assist General Scott’s negotiations with Villa. Unquestionably, the two agents could have been in personal contact. The second important fact is that Sommerfeld received orders from the Imperial War Department in the end of May to proceed on his proposal to instigate an American intervention in Mexico. Within weeks of this order, the German agent Krumm-Heller, an associate of Sommerfeld’s, appeared in the border region as a pro-German and pro-Carranza propagandist to incite the Mexican-American population against the “tyranny” of the United States. The timing of Krumm-Heller’s trip not only coincided with Sommerfeld’s order to produce a military intervention in Mexico but also with the labor unrest in America’s war industry, planned, financed, and executed by German agents in eerie parallels.

The unrest took on crisis proportions in the beginning of August. On the 3rd Carranzista irregulars engaged soldiers of the 12th Cavalry in Brownsville, Texas, leaving one soldier dead and two wounded. On September 6th Mexican raiders engaged the 3rd Cavalry and Texas Rangers again in Brownsville in a shootout leaving two Mexicans dead. U.S. authorities involved in battling the uprising and arresting the organizers behind the revolución de Texas left no stone unturned. Dozens of Mexican-Americans faced arrest and detention. Reprisals by the local Anglo population and the Texas Rangers raised the specter of a race war. As the battle for diplomatic recognition intensified in Washington and New York, so did the war in Texas. By the time the raids ended in October six Anglos and approximately three hundred Mexican and Mexican-Americans had died. As suddenly as the raids had started, they ended. On October 1st shortly after the American government announced that it will recognize Carranza’s faction as the legitimate government of Mexico the raids stopped. On October 13th General Frederick Funston reported to his superiors in Washington that “it had been ten days since the last hostile shot had been fired.” Historians Harris and Sadler concluded in their analysis of the uprising, “once Carranza withdrew his support, the insurrection in Texas collapsed like a punctured balloon… Viewing Mexican-Americans as a useful fifth column, Carranza skillfully played on their hopes and fears as a means of exerting pressure on the United States. When his policies shifted [and those of the United States], they were cynically abandoned… The Plan left a legacy of racial tension in south Texas that has endured to the present.”