Relations between the United States - who were neutral - and Germany had seriously deteriorated
over the past couple of weeks since Germany re-introduced unrestricted submarine warfare,
whereby even neutral shipping could be sunk without warning, and those relations take
another hit this week, as Germany detains American citizens as prisoners of war.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week, the action on the Libyan front
finally ended, and the Macedonian front came to life after the winter, with the British
realizing that the Bulgarian defenses were formidable.
Some big news also was the United States severing diplomatic relations with Germany and drawing
one step closer to joining the war.
And that crisis continued to develop.
After the US broke off diplomatic relations, American Ambassador to Berlin James Gerard
had requested his passport to leave the country.
That was back on the 5th.
Now, dispatches from the US had arrived in Berlin via London, which misled the German
government into thinking that their ambassador to the states, Count von Bernstorff, had been
detained by the American government, along with German ships in American ports and their crews.
So Gerard and a bunch of Americans in Germany, like newspaper correspondents, were themselves
detained and they remained so this week.
There had, in fact, been no such seizures of ships or anything in the States, and the
only restrictions on the German crews were those of immigration laws, and detaining Gerard
was actually an act of war.
Whatever the case, while he was being held incommunicado, the German government was trying
to deal with him by revising two old treaties and applying them to new conditions.
Of course, since breaking diplomatic relations Gerard was no longer an ambassador and had
no legal status to negotiate, but Germany asked him anyhow to sign a protocol that was
to protect Germans within the US and their interests in the event of war between Germany
and the US.
Germans in the United States and Americans in Germany were to be allowed to live their
lives and conduct their business unmolested, or were to be free to leave with their property.
They were to have the same private rights as any other citizens, their contracts were
to be honored, and they were not to be interred.
Also, merchant ships were not to be forced to leave port unless allowed binding safe
conduct by ALL enemy sea powers.
Basically, in the event of war Germany’s interests in the US would be exempt from military law.
Gerard refused to sign.
American Secretary of State Robert Lansing got hold of the protocol through the Swiss
and told Germany that the US would not modernize and extend the treaties - which were from
1799 and 1828 between the US and Prussia - pretty much because Germany had already violated
and voided them.
The 1828 one, for example, said that if one country was at war, the other one’s shipping
and commerce would not be interrupted.
Well, unrestricted submarine warfare threw that right out the window.
Lansing said he believed those treaties had been abrogated by Germany, but think about
what that means.
Without those treaties, German vessels in American harbors would be immediately seized
by the American government should war break out, so Germany had basically destroyed the
protection they would have otherwise received.
This week, when Berlin realized that no ships had been seized and Bernstorff was fine, they
released Gerard and another 120 Americans and gave them their passports.
The German government said Gerard’s detention was an error made by minor officials.
Thing is, they had not released the Yarrowdale passengers.
These were a number of Americans who had been taken from ships sunk by the German raider
Moewe and taken to Germany aboard the captured British steamer Yarrowdale.
They were being held as prisoners of war because they had taken pay and served aboard armed
enemy vessels.
The Story of the Great War says, “Germany disclosed for the first time that they were
treating armed merchantmen as ships of war and regarded neutral seamen found on such
vessels as combatants.
The German raider had captured altogether 103 subjects of neutral states.
They were not imprisoned because they had committed hostile acts...
They were penalized for being on enemy vessels.“
The US government said that this was all BS and they shouldn’t be prisoners of war without
committing hostile acts, but Germany did not free them.
German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann said, “They will be released just as soon
as we learn the fate of the German crews in American ports”.
Which they had actually already learned.
Those crews were at liberty.
By now people began thinking that these Yarrowdale guys were being held to be hostages in the
event of war, and just the fact of their detention was becoming a major part of the crisis between
Germany and the United States.
A report came this week on the 16th that they had been freed, but that was a false alarm.
They remained prisoner and tensions between the two nations grew ever stronger.
Germany did, of course, have to concentrate on the nations with which it was actually
at war, and there was scattered fighting this week.
There were no major offensives in progress on the Western Front, not since Verdun ended
a couple of months ago, and the Allies weren’t planning a new one until April, but still
there was action every day.
On the night of the 10th, the British captured a system of German trenches on a front a kilometer
wide on the Somme line north of Serre Hill, taking 215 prisoners.
There were many such raids this week by the British and the French, with most of them
being quite successful, and though they in themselves were not especially important,
together they showed progress.
Each slight advance brought them closer to important German positions and the number
of prisoners taken added up.
By Valentine’s Day the British had forced the Germans to abandon advance positions between
Serre and the Somme.
Of course, the Germans elsewhere were making gains of their own.
On the 15th, south of Ripont in Champagne, they stormed French lines on a 2km front,
penetrating 500m.
They captured 21 officers and 837 enlisted men.
They were also doing well on the Southeastern Front, which was slowly coming alive as winter waned.
On the 12th, a German attack near Jacobeny took Russian positions and over 1,200 prisoners
and on the 14th near Tarnopol, another attack took 6 officers and 275 prisoners.
And in the skies in the east?
Well, people have asked us a number of times about Russia’s air force, so I thought I’d
share this piece from “The Story of the Great War”.
“February 13th, 1917 was an especially active day for Russian aeroplanes on the Eastern Front.
They dropped bombs on the Povursk railway station, east of Kovel, and on the depots
north of the Povursk station.
Bombs were dropped on the station at Rodenrois, East of Riga; on the little town of Lihinhof,
in the vicinity of Friedrichstadt; on Valeika, the village of Sviatika, north of Vygonov
Lake, south of Kiselin; on Radzivilov, and in the regions south of Brody.”
All these attacks may have produced prisoners and casualties, but they didn’t change the
overall picture of the war, but on one front that was pretty close to happening.
The Mesopotamian Front, where General Sir Stanley Maude’s men were nearing Kut-al-Amara,
where a British army had surrendered to the Ottomans last spring.
His re-equipped, re-trained, and re-organized forces had been on the move up the Tigris
since December, and made great progress this week, driving the enemy from the right bank
of the Tigris and taking nearly 2,000 prisoners.
This was a major step toward victory, but the Ottomans still held strong defensive positions
at Sanniyat.
And here are some notes to end the week.
On the 14th, the British government told the Japanese government they would support Japanese
claims on German territory in Asia and the Pacific north of the equator if Japan will
support British claims south of it.
On the 15th, the British government took over all British coalmines for the duration of the war.
And that was the week.
The British coming ever nearer a prize in Mesopotamia, scattered fighting on the European
fronts, and a potential hostage situation in Germany.
Well, you could I guess call it a current hostage situation.
The Yarrowdale men had been held for 44 days as prisoners of war in violation of international law.
But really, who cared about international law at this point?
Any of the warring nations?
They were all using poison gas, that had been outlawed by the Hague years ago.
Atrocities against civilians?
Great, new PR opportunities!
So... hostages?
Who cares?
Individual rights had no place in modern war.
If the German Merchant Raider Moeve rang a distant bell in your head, that’s because
we made a whole special about their first, incredible journey.
You can learn all about that right here.
Our Patreon supporter of the week is Benjamin Kraus - thanks to Benjamin’s and your help,
we are able to produce this show.
Help us out on Patreon to make it even better.
See you next time.