America Fallen!. John Bernard Walker

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       John Bernard Walker

      America Fallen!

      Published by Good Press, 2020

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066067236

Table of Contents

       I⁠THE PEACE OF GENEVA

       II⁠THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AT POTSDAM

       III⁠AN UNDEFENDED TREASURE LAND

       IV⁠EMBARKATION OF THE GERMAN ARMY

       V⁠THE GERMAN FLEET SETS SAIL

       VI⁠THE CABINET MEETING AT WASHINGTON

       VII⁠THE RAID OF THE SUBMARINES

       VIII⁠CAPTURE OF NEW YORK HARBOR DEFENCES

       IX⁠INDEMNITY OR BOMBARDMENT

       X⁠THE BOMBARDMENT OF NEW YORK

       XI⁠THE CAPITULATION OF NEW YORK

       XII⁠THE SURRENDER OF BOSTON

       XIII⁠THE CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON

       XIV⁠SEEKING THE GERMAN FLEET

       XV⁠THE BATTLE OF THE CARIBBEAN

       XVI⁠REAPING THE WHIRLWIND

       XVII⁠THE CAPTURE OF PITTSBURG—AND PEACE

      Dodd, Mead and Company

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      1915

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      PREFACE

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      By way of preface to the second edition, the author wishes to make it clear that "America Fallen" was written with the serious purpose of emphasizing the warnings which have been uttered from year to year, both by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. These warnings have dwelt upon the insufficiency of our naval and military forces to resist attack by a first-class power; and "America Fallen" was written to embody these facts as to our unpreparedness in the form of a connected, dramatic narrative, which would bring home to the public and its Congress the urgent peril of the present conditions.

      Since the publication of the first edition, the work has received the strong endorsement of naval and military men. From the many letters received the two following have been selected for publication:

      Office of

      THE ADMIRAL OF THE NAVY

      WASHINGTON

       June 23, 1915.

       My dear Mr. Walker:

      I have read your excellent book, "America Fallen" with a great deal of interest, but I cannot say with pleasure, as it describes a state of affairs which might well exist if our ​country is not prepared to maintain itself at peace with the world.

       Sincerely yours, George Dewey.

       Mr. J. Bernard Walker, 233 Broadway, New York City.

       Stamford, Conn. June 25, 1915.

       My dear Mr. Walker:

       I have read your interesting book, "America Fallen." Under your reasonable supposition of a surprise invasion of our country without a previous declaration of war, the military operations you have outlined are perfectly feasible, and the outcome might easily be as disastrous to the United States as you have so graphically pictured.

       I hope your work may be read so widely and seriously that its lessons, together with the evident lessons of the day, will result in the adoption of an intelligent policy looking toward national preparedness against war.

       Sincerely yours, Matthew E. Hanna.

       Mr. J. Bernard Walker, Editor, Scientific American, New York City.

      [Captain Matthew E. Hanna, United States Army, the writer of the above letter, is the author of "Tactical Principles and Problems," the standard text-book on the subject in use in the United States Army.]

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      I

      THE PEACE OF GENEVA

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      The Treaty of Geneva, which brought to a close the European War, was signed, on March 1, 1916, by the peace plenipotentiaries of no less than thirteen nations.

      Throughout the spring, summer, and winter of 1915, the titanic conflict, enlarged by the entry of over 3,000,000 troops of Italy and the Balkan States into the theater of operations, swayed to and fro across the blood-soaked soil of Europe, with a ferocity and slaughter which sickened even the most hardened veterans of the war. Weight of numbers and a crushing superiority in artillery drove the armies of the Dual Monarchy back upon Budapest and Vienna, held the redoubtable Von Hindenberg within his own frontiers, ​and rolled the German armies in France and Belgium slowly back to the Rhine and the Dutch frontier.

      Undismayed, and fighting against heavy odds with a magnificent courage and steadiness, Germany took up a seemingly impregnable position on the right bank of the Rhine and marshaled her forces for a strictly defensive campaign in 1916. Late in November of 1915, however, when by common consent the warring hosts on the Western battle line had apparently settled down for comparative rest and recuperation during the winter months in a quasi-defensive, similar to that of 1915, Holland suddenly declaring war, entrenched herself heavily on the German border, and a vast Allied reserve army, entering Holland by the Belgian-Dutch border,