"A matter of extreme urgency": Theodore Roosevelt, Wilhelm II, and the Venezuela Crisis of 1902 - United States-Germany conflict over alleged German expansionistic efforts in Latin America

Naval War College Review, Spring, 2002 by Edmund Morris

Sunday, 14 December, dawned gray and bitingly cold in Washington. The White House stood shrouded in weekend quiet, but the countdown to war was continuing. Four more such dawns, and Roosevelt's deadline would expire. Then, unexpectedly, von Holleben asked to see the president. Von Holleben was em Diplomat alterer Schule, a diplomat of the old school. He had a booming laugh, which he used to forestall conversational attack. He preferred to do business in writing, with long delays between dispatch and response. The keystones of his diplomacy were concern about America's rise to world power and what John Hay called his "mortal terror" of the kaiser.

If Roosevelt expected an answer to his ultimatum of 8 December, he was soon disappointed. That Sunday von Holleben seemed interested in talking only about the weather, of all things, and tennis. Losing patience, TR asked if Germany was going to accept President Castro's arbitration proposal transmitted by Secretary of State Hay. The ambassador said no. Controlling his temper, the president replied that Kaiser Wilhelm must understand that he, Roosevelt, was "very definitely" threatening war. (11) Von Holleben declined to be a party to such peremptory language. The president replied that in that case, he must advance his ultimatum by twenty-four hours. Calculating from 8 December, the deadline would fall now on the 17th, rather than the 18th. Von Holleben, shaken, insisted that Wilhelm II would not accept arbitration, and TR let him have the last word.

Secretary Loeb, who was in the adjoining office, saw the ambassador go, but he made no record of his visit. Neither did clerks at the State Department or at the German embassy. It suited everybody concerned that the diplomatic record of this matter be blank from thenceforth; Wilhelm would be free to end the crisis without evidence of having been coerced.

Von Holleben pondered TR's incredible threat. He could transmit it now only as a matter of extreme urgency. He had long been aware of a rise of anti-Germanism in the United States, and he had once summoned up the courage to warn the kaiser that the Monroe Doctrine, as interpreted by President Roosevelt, was not to be trifled with. Wilhelm had scoffed at his qualms: "We will do whatever is necessary for our Navy, even if it displeases the Yankees. Never fear!" (12) Having been rebuffed once, von Holleben did not want to be dismissed as an alarmist now. What if the president's ultimatum turned out to be mere Rooseveltian bluster? On the other hand, what if the president was serious? Von Holleben decided to consult a German diplomat who knew TR well-the consul-general in New York, Karl Bunz.

That evening, under cloak of a dense snowstorm, von Holleben registered at the Cambridge Hotel in Manhattan. Some time during the next twenty-four hours, Bunz assured him that the president was absolutely not bluffing. Nor was TR's short-term strategy flawed. The kaiser's navy, whatever its worldwide strength, was currently dispersed. Admiral Dewey was, therefore, in a position to deal a brutal blow to German prestige in the Caribbean.