Woodrow Wilson as I Know HimTumulty, Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick)
History
Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him
Tumulty, Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick)
Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Months after hostilities had ended, there appeared from time to time in
the newspapers, without his or my knowledge of proposed publication,
utterances of his to military men during the conflict which showed his
warrior heart and his extraordinary ability to grasp a technical military
problem such as his dispatch to Admiral Sims, his address to the officers
of the Atlantic Fleet, and his interview with Marshal Joffre in the White
House. Perhaps it is not generally known that Mr. Wilson, who has
constantly read and loved the philosophic poetry of Wordsworth, has also
been an intense admirer of Shakespeare's warrior-hero, Henry the Fifth,
and has frequently read aloud to friends, with exclamations of admiration,
the stirring speeches of Henry in the Shakespearean play.
The cable message to Admiral Sims is as follows:
FROM THE PRESIDENT FOR ADMIRAL SIMS,
American Embassy, London, July 5, 1917.
Strictly confidential.
From the beginning of the war, I have been greatly surprised at the
failure of the British Admiralty to use Great Britain's great naval
superiority in an effective way. In the presence of the present
submarine emergency they are helpless to the point of panic. Every
plan we suggest they reject for some reason of prudence. In my view,
this is not a time for prudence but for boldness even at the cost of
great losses. In most of your dispatches you have quite properly
advised us of the sort of aid and cooperation desired from us by the
Admiralty. The trouble is that their plans and methods do not seem to
us efficacious. I would be very much obliged to you if you would
report to me, confidentially, of course, exactly what the Admiralty
has been doing, and what they have accomplished, and add to the report
your own comments and suggestions, based upon independent thought of
the whole situation, without regard to the judgments of any one on
that side of the water. The Admiralty was very slow to adopt the
protection or convoy and it is not now, I judge [protecting] convoys
on adequate scale within the danger zone, seeming to keep small craft
with the grand fleet. The absence of craft for convoy is even more
apparent on the French coast than on the English coast and in the
Channel. I do not see how the necessary military supplies and supplies
of food and fuel oil are to be delivered at British ports in any other
way within the next few months than under adequate convoy. There will
presently not be ships or tankers enough and our shipbuilding plans
may not begin to yield important results in less than eighteen months.
I believe that you will keep these instructions absolutely and
entirely to yourself, and that you will give me such advice as you
would give if you were handling and if you were running a navy of your
own.
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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