Chapter I. I WITNESS THE BLOWING UP OF THE PANAMA CANAL

In my thirty years'service as war correspondent of the London Times

I have looked behind the scenes of various world happenings, and have known the thrill of personally facing some great historic crises; but there is nothing in my experience so dramatic, so pregnant with human consequences, as the catastrophe of April 27, 1921, when the Gatun Locks of the Panama Canal were destroyed by dynamite.

At that moment I was seated on the shaded, palm-bordered piazza of the Grand Hotel at Colon, discussing with Rear-Admiral Thomas Q. Allyn of the United States Navy the increasing chances that America might find herself plunged into war with Japan. For weeks the clouds had been darkening, and it was now evident that the time had come when the United States must either abandon the Monroe Doctrine and the open door in China, or fight to maintain these doctrines.

"Mr. Langston,"the Admiral was saying,"the situation is extremely grave. Japan intends to carry out her plans of expansion in Mexico and China, and possibly in the Philippines; there is not a doubt of it. Her fleet is cruising somewhere in the Pacific,—we don't know where,—and our Atlantic fleet passed through the Canal yesterday, as you know, to make a demonstration of force in the Pacific and to be ready for—for whatever may come."

His hands closed nervously, and he studied the horizon with half-shut eyes.

In the course of our talk Admiral Allyn had admitted that the United States was woefully unprepared for conflict with a great power, either on sea or land.

"The blow will be struck suddenly,"he went on,"you may be sure of that. Our military preparations are so utterly inadequate that we may suffer irreparable harm before we can begin to use our vast resources. You know when Prussia struck Austria in 1866 the war was over in three months. When Germany struck France in 1870 the decisive battle, Sedan, was fought forty-seven days later. When Japan struck Russia, the end was foreseen within four or five months."

"It wasn't so in the great European war,"I remarked.

"Why not? Because England held the mastery of the sea. But we hold the mastery of nothing. Our fleet is barely third among the nations and we are frightfully handicapped by our enormous length of coast line and by this canal."

"The Canal gives us a great advantage, doesn't it? I thought it doubled the efficiency of our fleet?"

"It does nothing of the sort. The Canal may be seized. It may be put out of commission for weeks or months by landslides or earthquakes. A few hostile ships of the Queen Elizabeth class lying ten miles off shore at either end, with ranges exactly fixed, or a good shot from an Aeroplane, could not only destroy the Canal's insufficient defences, but could prevent our fleet from coming through, could hold it, useless, in the Atlantic when it might be needed to save California or useless in the Pacific when it might be needed to save New York. If it happened when war began that one half of our fleet was in the Atlantic and the other half in the Pacific, then the enemy could keep these two halves separated and destroy them one by one."

"I suppose you mean that we need two fleets?"

"Of course we do—a child can see it—if we are to guard our two seaboards. We must have a fleet in the Atlantic strong enough to resist any probable attack from the East, and another fleet in the Pacific strong enough to resist any probable attack from the We st.

"But listen to this, think of this,"the veteran warrior leaned towards me, shaking an eager fore-finger."At the present moment our entire fleet, if massed off Long Island, would be inferior to a fleet that Germany could send across the Atlantic against us by many ships, many submarines and many aeroplanes. And hopelessly inferior in men and ammunition, including torpedoes."

As I listened I felt myself falling under the spell of the Admiral's eloquence. He was so sure of what he said. The se dangers unquestionably existed, but—were they about to descend upon America? Must we really face the horrors of a war of invasion?

"Your arguments are very convincing, sir, and yet—"I hesitated.

"We ll?"

"You speak as if these things were going to happen right now, but there are no signs of war, no clouds on the horizon."

The Admiral waved this aside with an impatient gesture.

"I tell you the blow will come suddenly. We re there any clouds on the European horizon in July, 1914? Yet a few persons knew, just as I have known for months, that war was inevitable."

"Known?"I repeated.

Very deliberately the grizzled sea fighter lighted a fresh cigar before replying.

"Mr. Langston, I'll tell you a little story that explains why I am posing as a prophet. You can put it in your memoirs some day—if my prophecy comes true. It's the story of an American naval officer, a young lieutenant, who—well, he went wrong about a year ago. He got into the clutches of a woman spy in the employ of a foreign government. He met this woman in Marseilles on our last Mediterranean cruise and fell in love with her—hopelessly. She's one of those devilish sirens that no full-blooded man can resist and, the extraordinary part of it is, she fell in love with him—genuinely in love.

"We ll—it was a bad business. This officer gave the woman all he had, told her all he knew, and finally he asked her to marry him. Yes. He didn't care what she was. He just wanted her. And she was so happy, so crazy about him, that she almost yielded; she was ready to turn over a new leaf, to settle down as his wife, but—"

"But she didn't do it?"I smiled.

The Admiral shook his head.

"He was a poor man—just a lieutenant's pay and she couldn't give up her grand life. But she loved him enough to try to save him, enough to leave him. She wrote him a wonderful letter, poured her soul out to him, gave him certain military secrets of the government she was working for—they would have shot her in a minute, you understand, if they had known it—and she told him to take this information as a proof of her love and use it to save the United States."

I was listening now with absorbed interest.

"What government was she working for?"

The Admiral paused to relight his cigar.

"Wait! The next thing was that this lieutenant came to me, as a friend of his father and an Admiral of the American fleet, and made a clean breast of everything. He made his confession in confidence, but asked me to use the knowledge as I saw fit without mentioning his name. I did use it and"—the Admiral's frown deepened—"the consequence was no one believed me. They said the warning was too vague. You know the attitude of recent administrations towards all questions of national defence. It's always politics before patriotism, always the fear of losing middle west pacifist votes. It's disgusting—horrible!"

"Was the warning really vague?"

"Vague. My God!"The old sea dog bounded from his chair."I'll tell you how vague it was. A statement was definitely made that before May 1, 1921, a great foreign power would make war upon the United States and would begin by destroying the Panama Canal. To-day is April 27, 1921. I don't say these things are going to happen within three days but, Mr. Langston, as purely as the sun shines on that ocean, we Americans are living in a fool's paradise. We are drunk with prosperity. We are deaf and blind to the truth which is known to other nations, known to our enemies, known to the ablest officers in our army and navy.

"The truth is that, as a nation, we have learned nothing from our past wars because we have never had to fight a first-class power that was prepared. But the next war, and it is surely coming, will find us held in the grip of an inexorable law which provides that nations imitating the military policy of China must suffer the fate of China."

The Admiral now explained why he had sent for me. It was to suggest that I cable the London Times, urging my paper to use its influence, through British diplomatic channels, to avert another great war. I pointed out that the chances of such intervention were slight. Great Britain was still smarting under the memory of Americans'alleged indifference to everything but money in 1918 when the United States stood by, unprotesting, and saw England stripped of her mastery of the sea after the loss of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal.

"The re are two sides to that,"frowned the Admiral,"but one thing is certain—it's England or no one. We have nothing to hope for from Russia; she has what she wants—Constantinople. Nothing to hope for from France; she has her lost provinces back. And as for Germany—Germany is waiting, recuperating, watching her chance for a place in the South American sun."

"Germany managed well in the Geneva Peace Congress of 1919,"I said.

The veteran of Manila threw down his cigarette impatiently.

"Bismarck could have done no better. They bought off Europe, they crippled England and—they isolated America."

"By the way,"continued the Admiral,"I must show you some things in my scrap book. You will be astonished. Wait a minute. I'll get it."

The old fellow hurried off and presently returned with a heavy volume bound in red leather.

"Take it up to your room to-night and look it over. You will find the most overwhelming mass of testimony to the effect that to-day, in spite of all that has been said and written and all the money spent, the United States is totally unprepared to defend its coasts or uphold its national honour. Just open the book anywhere—you'll see."

I obeyed and came upon this statement by The odore Roosevelt:

What befell Antwerp and Brussels will surely some day befall New York or San Francisco, and may happen to many an inland city also, if we do not shake off our supine folly, if we trust for safety to peace treaties unbacked by force.

"Pretty strong words for an ex-President of the United States to be using,"nodded the Admiral."And true! Try another place."

I did so and came upon this from the pen of Gerhard von Schulze-Gaevernitz, professor of political economy at the University of Freiburg and a member of the Reichstag:

Flattered and deftly lulled to sleep by British influence, public opinion in the United States will not wake up until the'yellow New England'of the Orient, nurtured and deflected from Australia by England herself, knocks at the gates of the new world. Not a patient and meek China, but a warlike and conquest-bound Japan will be the aggressor when that day comes. Then America will be forced to fight under unfavourable conditions.

The famous campaigner's eyes flashed towards the Pacific.

"When that day comes! Ah! Speaking of Japan,"he turned over the pages in nervous haste."Here we are! You can see how much the Japanese love us! Listen! This is an extract from the most popular book in Japan to-day. It is issued by Japan's powerful and official National Defence Association with a view to inflaming the Japanese people against the United States and preparing them for a war of invasion against this country. Listen to this:

"Let America beware! For our cry,'On to California! On to Hawaii! On to the Philippines!'is becoming only secondary to our imperial anthem!... To arms! We must seize our standards, unfurl them to the winds and advance without the least fear, as America has no army worthy the name, and with the Panama Canal destroyed, its few battleships will be of no use until too late.

"I tell you, Mr. Langston,"pursued the Admiral,"we Americans are to-day the most hated nation on earth. The richest, the most arrogant, the most hated nation on earth! And helpless! Defenceless! Believe me, that's a bad combination. Look at this! Read this! It's a cablegram to the New York Tribune, published on May 21, 1915, from Miss Constance Drexel, an American delegate to the Woman's Peace Conference at The Hague:

"I have just come out of Germany and perhaps the predominating impression I bring with me is Germany's hatred of America. Germany feels that war with America is only a matter of time. Everywhere I went I found the same sentiment, and the furthest distance away I found the war put was ten years. It was said to me:'We must settle with England first, but then will come America's turn. If we don't make war on you ourselves we will get Japan into a war with you, and then we will supply arms and munitions to Japan.'"

At this point, I remember, I had turned to order an orange liqueur, when the crash came.

It was terrific. Every window in the hotel was shattered, and some scores of labourers working near the Gatun Locks were killed instantly. Six hundred tons of dynamite, secreted in the hold of a German merchantman, had been exploded as the vessel passed through the locks, and ten thousand tons of Portland cement had sunk in the tangled iron wreck, to form a huge blockading mass of solid rock on the floor of the narrow passage.

Needless to say, every man on the German ship thus sacrificed died at his post.

The Admiral stared in dismay when the news was brought to him.

"Germany!"he muttered."And our fleet is in the Pacific!"

"Does it mean war?"I asked.

"Yes, of course. Unquestionably it means war. We have been misled. We were thinking of one enemy, and we have been struck by another. We thought we could send our fleet through the Canal and get it back easily; but—now we cannot get it back for at least two months!"