ate.
Telegraphic communication between the German Government and the
Embassy at Washington was carried out by a circuitous route, which
made it extremely slow; thus I was compelled to decide on my own
responsibility and take immediate action. I fully realized that
the rupture of diplomatic relations would mean war. In America
we were face to face with a vigorous hostile propaganda, which
had as its sole object to draw the United States into war, and
thus bring about a decision by force of arms. From the time of
the _Lusitania_ incident onwards, the diplomatic struggle between
ourselves and the Entente was centred entirely around the question
of the future action of the United States. The threatened rupture
of relations between that country and Germany would have left the
field open for hostile propaganda, by taking from us all chance
of combating it. War would thus have been inevitable sooner or
later. The first and most urgent necessity was, therefore, the
avoidance of such a rupture at whatever cost, and my efforts were
now solely directed to this end. As things turned out, it might,
perhaps, have been better if the United States had actually gone
to war at this moment. Her military pressure, and our consequent
defeat, would have come two years earlier, before the German people
had been demoralized and exhausted by four years of war and blockade.
But at that time I had good hopes of being able to bring about
peace through American mediation, and consequently wished to gain
time at all costs.

I resolved, without waiting for instructions from Berlin, to make
use of my privileged position as Ambassador to demand an audience
with the President. I heard later, among other things when I was at
Manila, that on this very day, June 2nd, all preparations had been
made for breaking off relations, and for the inevitable resulting
war. As a result of my interview, however, they were cancelled. I
had a long conversation with the President and two of his advisers.
Mr. Wilson felt the position acutely, and was animated solely by a
desire to preserve peace. We both realized that it was a question
of gaining time, and succeeded in coming to an agreement on the
measures to be taken to mitigate the crisis. We took the view that
the isolation of Germany had given rise to an atmosphere of
misunderstanding between her and the United States, and that the
establishment of some sort of personal relationship might be expected
to ease this t