My Three Years in America
by . New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1920. 12mo, 428 pp. $5.00.
EXCEPT for a short introduction headed ‘My Political Views,’ in which Count Bernstorff professes his lifelong advocacy of an Anglo-German understanding, he keeps closely within the field indicated by his title. His book seems to have three purposes, not entirely compatible, yet reconciled with considerable skill. One is to describe, as an objective contribution to history, the efforts of the Washington Embassy during his incumbency to promote the cause of Germany in the United States and to prevent a rupture between the two countries. The second is to strengthen the democratic movement in Germany by pointing out — though diplomatically and by implication — the blunders of the old autocracy; and the third is to pave the way toward a better future understanding between the German and the American people. All three lines of suggestion are made to contribute to a defense of the author’s official acts and policies.
Five main topics occupy the major portion of the book: German propaganda in the United States; economic issues raised by the war; the alleged German conspiracies; the submarine controversy; and proposed American mediation. Dispatches and documents are quoted freely, and some valuable new material is presented. Count Bernstorff conveys the impression that, with less stupidity at Berlin, less temper at Paris, less commercial avidity at London, and more promptness and decision at the White House, America might have brought the combatants to the conference table before its own government became involved in hostilities. We lay down the book with a strengthened conviction — if that were needed — that had the common people of this country and the belligerent powers known all that was going on behind the diplomatic screen, fighting would have stopped before our own boys started on their trip to France.
Quotable passages abound, but some of the most illuminating will escape the attention of those who are not familiar with the context of evidence which gives them meaning. Among the salient facts are the Kaiser’s apparent eagerness for American mediation in October, 1916, as shown by a personal memorandum sent to our government; the effect of the presidential election that year in delaying our efforts to mediate until too late to prevent the resumption of unlimited submarine warfare; and the paralyzing conflict between civilian and military authority in Germany, which made a consistent diplomatic policy, either by or with that country, impossible. These facts are of course known, but they are vividly confirmed by Count Bernstorff’s narrative. Americans will be interested in the statement: ‘Wilson had firmly made up his mind, in case Mr. Hughes was elected, to appoint him Secretary of State immediately, and, after Hughes had informed himself on the political position in this office, to hand over the presidency and himself retire. Mr. Wilson considered it impossible to leave the country without firm leadership at such a dangerous moment.’
Upon the whole this is a book which should be widely read in the United States. It will be the most informing to those who are already best informed upon the subjects with which it deals. It is not a book for superficial criticism. Both the prejudiced challenger inclined to dispute every statement a priori, and the trusting reader, to whom ‘the other side’ appeals as the more credible, will probably err in their conclusions. It is a book which promises to wear well with historians, both for what it tells and for what it omits.
Many American readers will consider the care with which the former Ambassador keeps his discussion of German activities in America within the limits of ‘legally admissible evidence’ an evasion of charges which may not affect his personal actions, but do involve those of his official superiors in Germany and of his associates in this country. V. S. C.