Wangenheim pretended to regard the Armenian question as a matter that chiefly affected the United States. My constant intercession in their behalf apparently created the impression, in his Germanic mind, that any mercy shown this people would be a concession to the American Government. And at that moment he was not disposed to do anything that would please the American people.
"The United States is apparently the only country that takes much interest in the Armenians," he said. "Your missionaries are their friends and your people have constituted themselves their guardians. The whole question of helping them is therefore an American matter. How, then, can you expect me to do anything as long as the United States is selling ammunition to the enemies of Germany? Mr. Bryan has just published his note, saying that it would be unneutral not to sell munitions to England and France. As long as your government maintains that attitude we can do nothing for the Armenians."
Probably no one except a German logician would ever have detected any relation between our sale of war materials to the Allies and Turkey's attacks upon hundreds of thousands of Armenian women and children. But that was about as much progress as I made with Wangenheim at that time. I spoke to him frequently, but he invariably offset my pleas for mercy to the Armenians by references to the use of American shells at the Dardanelles. A coolness sprang up between us soon afterward, the result of my refusal to give him "credit" for having stopped the deportation of French and British civilians to the Gallipoli peninsula. After our somewhat tart conversation over
