AN INVITATION TO ATTEND THE OPENING OF THE ROYALACADEMY.
AN INVITATION TO A COURT BALL.
SAFE CONDUCT FOR AMBASSADOR GERARD AND HIS FAMILY,UNDER THE SIGNATURE OF SECRETARY ZIMMERMANN, FEBRUARY, 5,1917.
AMBASSADOR GERARD SAYING GOOD-BYE TO THE AMERICANSLEAVING ON A SPECIAL TRAIN, AUGUST, 1914.
MY FOUR YEARS IN GERMANY
BY JAMES W. GERARD
LATE AMBASSADOR TO THE GERMAN IMPERIAL COURT
TO MY SMALL BUT TACTFUL FAMILY OF ONE
MY WIFE
FOREWORD
I am writing what should have been the last chapter of this bookas a foreword because I want to bring home to our people thegravity of the situation; because I want to tell them that themilitary and naval power of the German Empire is unbroken; that ofthe twelve million men whom the Kaiser has called to the coloursbut one million, five hundred thousand have been killed, fivehundred thousand permanently disabled, not more than five hundredthousand are prisoners of war, and about five hundred thousandconstitute the number of wounded or those on the sick list ofeach day, leaving at all times about nine million effectivesunder arms.
I state these figures because Americans do not grasp either themagnitude or the importance of this war. Perhaps the statementthat over five million prisoners of war are held in the variouscountries will bring home to Americans the enormous mass of menengaged.
There have been no great losses in the German navy, and any lossesof ships have been compensated for by the building of new ones.The nine million men, and more, for at least four hundred thousandcome of military age in Germany every year, because of theirexperience in two and a half years of war are better and moreefficient soldiers than at the time when they were called tothe colours. Their officers know far more of the science of thiswar and the men themselves now have the skill and bearing ofveterans.
Nor should anyone believe that Germany will break under starvationor make peace because of revolution.
The German nation is not one which makes revolutions. There willbe scattered riots in Germany, but no simultaneous rising of thewhole people. The officers of the army are all of one class,and of a class devoted to the ideals of autocracy. A revolutionof the army is impossible; and at home there are only the boysand old men easily kept in subjection by the police.
There is far greater danger of the starvation of our Allies thanof the starvation of the Germans. Every available inch of groundin Germany is cultivated, and cultivated by the aid of the oldmen, the boys and the women, and the two million prisoners ofwar.
The arable lands of Northern France and of Roumania are beingcultivated by the German army with an efficiency never beforeknown in these countries, and most of that food will be addedto the food supplies of Germany. Certainly the people suffer;but still more certainl