The war lords knew that if the war lasted long enough they must be defeated and they were striving hard all through the years 1916 and 1917 to make peace while they had possession of enough of the enemy’s lands so that they could show their own people some gain in territory to pay them back for their terrible sufferings.  The German war debt was so great that the war lords dreaded to face their own people after the latter realized that they had been deceived as well as defeated.  The government had told them (1) that England, France, and Russia forced this war upon Germany, (2) that the German armies would win the war in short order, and (3) that a huge sum of money would be collected from France, Belgium, and Russia to pay the expenses of the war.  The war lords dreaded to think of the time when their people, knowing that they themselves will have to bear the fearful burden of war debt, learned also that the whole tragedy was forced upon the world by the pride and ambition of their own leaders.  By Christmas 1917, the Kaiser was once more hinting that Germany was ready to talk peace.  He was wise, for if peace could have been made then it would have left Germany absolute mistress of all of middle Europe.  Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey were more under the control of the Kaiser and his war lords than were parts of his own empire like Bavaria and Saxony.  In Belgium, Serbia, Poland, Lithuania, Roumania, and northern France the central powers had over forty millions of people who were compelled to work for them like slaves.  The plunder collected from these countries ran into billions of dollars.  The road to the east, cut asunder by the results of the second Balkan war (see map), had been forced open by the rush of the victorious German armies through Serbia and Roumania.  A peace at this time would have been a German victory.  With the drain on the man power of the central powers, with dissatisfaction growing among their people, with the steady increase in the armies of the United States, time was fighting on the side of the allies.

Questions for Review

 1.  Does the Zimmermann note show that the German government
    understood conditions in Mexico and the United States?
 2.  Why did the Zimmermann note have so strong an effect upon American
    public opinion?
 3.  What were the steps by which the United States was forced into
    war?
 4.  Why did not Holland and Denmark declare war on Germany also?
 5.  What was the main difference between the English blockade of
    Germany and the German submarine war on England?
 6.  Was the German government responsible for the acts of its agents
    in this country?
 7.  What is the Monroe Doctrine?
 8.  Why could not the Imperial Government of Germany be trusted?
 9.  How was this war different for the United States from any previous
    conflict?
10.  What was the greatest obstacle to peace?