Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [114]
This was the first hint that the British government wanted Theodore Roosevelt to help resolve the crisis. His neutrality, not to mention his recent mediation of the great coal strike, recommended him as an arbitrator. But Metternich would not budge.
It was now Tuesday, 16 December. Fewer than twenty-four hours remained before Roosevelt’s deadline. In New York, von Holleben went down to Wall Street to check the latest fluctuations of German-American and Latin American opinion. In London, the British Cabinet approved Lord Lansdowne’s proposal to accept arbitration “in principle,” thus driving a wedge into the alliance. In Washington, the Roosevelt Cabinet met in closed session. And in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a fast torpedo boat stood ready to rush any emergency orders to Admiral Dewey.
“Such cables,” Admiral Taylor alerted naval intelligence, “may be written in cipher … and [are] to be considered confidential.” He reminded all staff that “there are many matters connected with the business of the fleet here, which are not a proper subject for discussion.”
After less than an hour in the Cabinet Room, Secretary Moody hurried back to his office with a presidential order. A White House spokesman said that it concerned Christmas visits that the fleet would make to various Caribbean ports. Reporters soon learned that Dewey’s big battleship squadron was headed for Trinidad, only sixty miles from La Guiria. And why was the Navy Department handing out detailed maps of the blockade zone?
Throughout the crisis so far, Roosevelt had pursued a policy of apparent candor and cooperation with the press, issuing regular bulletins about the maneuvers, along with qualified assurances that he was handling the Allies with restraint. “He sees little reason,” the Washington Evening Star noted that afternoon, “to be throwing out unofficial intimations to Germany and England that this country has fixed a deadline, which they must not cross.” The truth or untruth of this statement lay in the adjective unofficial.
By now the Ambassador’s unexplained absence from town was causing comment along Massachusetts Avenue. He was scheduled to attend an evening reception at the home of the British Ambassador, Sir Michael Herbert. Protocol clearly required that he make an appearance, but darkness came, and von Holleben was not seen. Neither were the German military and naval attachés. They had slipped away to join their leader in New York.
From there, before midnight, certain words flashed to Berlin. Roosevelt was not to know exactly how von Holleben transmitted his threat of war, only that the threat got through—on a night when the Atlantic cable was so electric with communications that even The Times of London was denied access.
Once read, von Holleben’s words were probably burned, in approved German-security fashion. His dispatch of record for 16 December 1902 advised only that
now the cannons have spoken, and Germany has shown the world it is willing to assert its fair rights, we would make a good impression on all Americans if our government were to accept arbitration in principle.
The reaction in Berlin was immediate. On 17 December, the Reichstag voted secretly to accept arbitration, in such haste that other encouragements, from Hay in Washington and Metternich in London, were redundant on receipt.
SO THE DEADLINE passed in peace. There could be no end to the blockade until arbitration actually began, but a massive release of tension was felt on both sides of the Atlantic.
Roosevelt’s triumph was von Holleben’s disgrace. The Ambassador remained in New York while arrangements were made to bring him home on permanent disability leave. “I am a sick man,” he told a reporter. “I cannot answer a single question.” He had misjudged a President, misled an Emperor, and nearly started a war. His only consolation was that the Wilhelmstrasse could not cite these as reasons for his