Co. THE SECRET HISTORY OF VON TIRPITZ

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2953, 13 December 1916, Page 5

Co. THE SECRET HISTORY OF VON TIRPITZ

STORY OR_HIS FALL JBy Charles Tower, "Daily Mail" Spe- ■ oial Correspondent in Holland.) Amsterdam. "I have never seen a Minister whose statements were so trustworthy." . —Eugen Riohter. The opening of a new German subinarine campaign on the American fcoast, accompanied by the impudent .blockade of American ports, gives Special importance to the curious chapter of secret history regarding tho beginning of the first submarine campaign .eighteen months ago. The material for ]lhat history has only been forthcoming in the last few weeks. The sories of frauds whereby Grand Admiral Tirpite las fooled foreign Powers, the Reichstag, and even. German Sovereigns, has st last been disclosed in tbe Father' Jand. If for most of his frauds his ■master was equally responsible and equally guilty, for the last fraud, •whereby he fell, the Kaiser has at least attempted to shelve responsibility by :ebandomng tbe man who served his intrigues ior nearly twenty years and whom he upheld and defended again m the well-founded aoonsations of the Chancellor and a score of party leaders. The "secret" history ,of the fall of Wdmiral Tirpitz (though it can no longer ne called a secret) is as follows:— When the consent of the Kaiser and the Chancellor was. asked by Tirpitz for his famous .campaign of ruthless submarine warfare, he was told both by K&lser and Chancellor,that the oamipaign could only bo permitted if thero were then in existence enough snunmrines to make the blookade of England immediately effective.. He must be.able to starve England out within a few, weeks, and tnus end' the war or else to compel her within a tew weeks to abandon the semi-blockade of Germany then in force. Tirpitz was told •that a long, and slow process of "starving England out" would not be effective for many reasons', and in addition would certainly bring at least one neutral Power into the war against Germany. The Chancellor based his opposition to the scheme not on any questions of humanity but Bimply on the advice of the Foreign Office and of German representative"; in neutral countries.

Now Tirpitz knew that he had not enough submarines then in existence to make the campaign completely effective and to produce the required results speedily. He knew that there would be periods when, owing to loss of submarines and other causes, there would be gaps in the continuity of the socalled submarine blockade. But he believed that if once he could get the necessary permission he could establish a precedent for sinking ships without warning, and then, by practically suspending all work in German dockyards except on the construction of submarines, he could in time have rofldj a force capable of carrying out his design. He believed that if the opening of the campaign were delayed it would .never be put into force at "all. . British measures against submarines were beooming more effective, 'and moreover ,«ven at that time ho realised that the .war could not be won against Britain wi land or on'the surface of the water. Therefore he lied. He gave as the figure :«f German submarines then readv or Bearing completion a number which is variously stated in the various reports of this matter'which have reached Holland from 250 to nearly 350. ' It will lie-remembered that reports of these ngnres reached England at the time, the highest figure quoted being, I believe, 300. ■ ; Covering tho Lie. Both the Kaiser and the Chancellor and, when it was also consulted,, the federal Council believed that the figure 3irpitz quoted was the actual number ot submarines then ready,' and they accepted Tirpitz's view that with this riumber the blockade .could be rendered immediately effective. But while Tirpitz probably did believe that with the liurnber he quoted he could achieve the desired purpose, that number was not then and, if my information is correct, never has been m existence in Germans lirpitz quoted as his figure the total number of submarines in existence at the outbreak of war, built since the war, and for whose construction plans •were ready at the time he made his statement. Also he made no deduotion for losses or for vessels not B uited to the purpose of a blockade. It is believed in Germany that if the i German Admiralty * had possessed the number of submarines as stated by Tirpitz, then Kaiser and (.chancellor would, if necessary; have deemed to take President Wilson's protests into account at all. They, like Keventlow, believed and believe that the sword of the United States is Jifldo of wood » Tirpitz did not get tne time he wanted to complete his submarines, and the British Admiralty proved considerably more efficient in dealing with those that there were than T lrp ite had calculated. There was an ITK "' a German report Krf, » l a , S -T ach - C 1 . mc , fls "Minotpein/Lt J" n " gh: J ,e as third degree." The Chancellor and to lT gtl , Sc <™ ta /.V' ere determined *nl v e fa - cts "«««"* the submarines. Now in the report of this inquiry which Professor Valentin ment.oned he declared that the Chancellor ItmiT "V I *** 0 >ve the actual numbers of submarines "originallv Slw an <* the ™™W since 2 lost" stolen from the Admiralty. It is apparently true that that "was not the r S fi> at - d,d , k »' ™ 'that a confidential circular, written by Tirpitz tor use exclusively within the four walls of the Admiralty, reached the Chanre lor, and this circular originated the whole inquiry. Under the "third degree . investigation Tirpitz -admitted that in his original statement ho had forgotten to note" that he included I S all ships built and all planned. But he now gave the-actual figures. Thus the Chancellor was able later to avoid a public scandal and to cover Tirpitz's be by statine that "the fisnres hft gave were the samo as those given subsequently by his successor "

Three other Frauds. Now the whole story might have appeared incredible oven to Germans bad there not been certain old men who remembered vaguely an incident which had occurred fourteen years before. On January 6, 1902 vorwarts' published' „. confidential circular of Tirpity., issued for Admir11K !" fol n m^ lon only, «-hioh admitted ■hat the fteichstag had! haen deliberately lied to. When this incident was remembered people began to look further '. nto Tirpitz 5 record. And they found in the annals of the Beichstag a famous speech by that great Liberal de- .™. Eugen Richter, in December, 1899. The speech, which everybody had forgotten, ends with this remarkable oharge: "Hitherto I had kno\v only that speech was given to diplomats to conceal their thoughts. Now I. know that the phrase is true also of admirals. And to-day I know more still. I know that the pcucil of Herr von Tirpitz is employed to make additions which shall mask the real sum! 1 have seen some hundred Ministers come and go in this place, but I have never seen one whose information and explanations were so little reliable as those of Herr von Tirpitz."

He being dead yet sppaketh. Bark to those musty files of the, end of last century went the inquisitive investigators, and they found that on two #cner occasions Tirpitz had deliberately lied to tho Federal Council and to tho Beichstag. They found that from the

first day to the lost the German Navy had been built up on a foundation of fraud. Three times the Kaiser supported his Kara! secretary against the indignation of the Chancellor, Pnnoe liohenlohe, and the accusations of fraud launched against him hy the Federal Council and by tho ablest speakers in tho Roichstag. But this fourth time the Kaiser was obliged to lot hiro fall. The swindle was too palpable, the results too disastrous, and, aboTo all, the record too black.