In June 1914, Roosevelt was busy negotiating with Congress for the sale to the Greek Navy of two undersized and obsolete battleships, the USS Idaho and the USS Mississippi. Relations with Congress were usually handled by Josephus Daniels, who was particularly good at it and enjoyed the genial give-and-take that was such an important part of getting along with senators and representatives; but there were numerous technical questions involved in the battleship sale, and Roosevelt, who understood the naval specifics much better than Daniels, was kept busy putting together an appropriate bill for submission to Congress.
The sale of the two battleships raised important diplomatic considerations. Turkey, which at the time was involved in a bitter dispute with Greece over the ownership of certain Aegean islands, protested the sale, and Roosevelt had to assure the Congress that the transfer of the two battleships was not likely to ignite still another Balkan war similar to the back-to-back conflicts of 1912 and 1913 that had caused the weary diplomatic community to coin the catchphrase “trouble in the Balkans” to define those fierce, brief, and generally inconsequential wars that seemed to erupt every year or so in remote corners of eastern Europe.
The sale of the battleships was approved by Congress as a rider to the Naval Appropriations Act on June 30, 1914; and as soon as Daniels had accepted the check for $12,535,275.96 from the Greeks, Roosevelt had only to arrange for the delivery of the two ships. It is safe to say that with his attention focused on the details of the battleship deal, Roosevelt was paying little attention to reports from Sarajevo concerning the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife by a Serbian nationalist. That incident, which would soon erupt into the most terrible war in history and eventually touch the lives of virtually all people on the face of the earth, went largely unnoticed by the rest of the world and was shrugged off as just another example of “trouble in the Balkans.”
There were other, more pressing, issues closer to home. In the middle of July, Roosevelt returned to his office one afternoon “to find not only a vast accumulation” of paperwork, as he wrote to Eleanor, who by that time had departed with the children for Campobello, “ but also an interesting situation in Haiti and Santo Domingo, with a hurry call for marines from the State Department.”
The “interesting situation” referred to the civil unrest that had broken out in Haiti and its neighbor on Hispaniola, Santo Domingo (now known as the Dominican Republic), which not only threatened American residents of the island, but, because the island lay athwart international trade routes, also threatened the Panama Canal, which was nearing completion. On July 13, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan burst into FDR’s office, shouting, “I’ve got to have a battleship! White people are being killed in Haiti and I must send a battleship there within twenty-four hours!” Roosevelt told him that would be impossible. “Our battleships are in Narragansett Bay,” he explained, “and I could not get one to Haiti in less than four days, steaming at full speed. But I have a gunboat at Guantanamo and I could get her to Haiti within eight hours if you want me to.” Bryan was much relieved. “That is all I wanted to know,” he said, turning to leave and then stopping in the doorway and, looking back, said, “Roosevelt, after this when I talk about battleships, don’t think I mean anything technical.”
Roosevelt loved to cite the incident, which became one of his favorite anecdotes about the folly of so-called experts.
By the time Roosevelt was finally able to free himself and join his family at Campobello, the European unrest triggered by the assassination of the Austrian archduke had grown into a major diplomatic crisis, and the world was watching with mounting alarm and horror as a huge multinational war became increasingly likely. When Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28, Roosevelt received an urgent message requiring him, in light of the grave international situation, to return to Washington. On his way to the train he stopped at the telegraph office in Eastport, Maine to get the latest war news, all of which was grim. In response to Austria’s move, Russia, honoring her commitment to the Serbs, was mobilizing her troops, which meant Germany would come to the aid of Austria, which in turn would cause France, Russia’s ally, to join the fray. Britain, tied to the continent by only vague diplomatic pacts, remained a question mark, but the assumption, which proved correct, was that she would become a belligerent soon enough. Enthralled by the exciting news, and already calculating how the U.S. Navy should respond, Roosevelt climbed aboard the southbound Bar Harbor Express and found his way to the smoking room.
As he recalled the scene years later, “The smoking room of the Express was filled with gentlemen from banking and brokerage offices in New York, most of whom were old friends of mine; and they began giving me their opinion about impending war in Europe. These eminent bankers and brokers assured me, and made it good with bets, that there wasn’t enough money in all the world to carry on a European war for more than three months.”
Roosevelt was astonished at the naïveté of the financial experts. Anyone who knew anything about history knew that nations at war always find the money to keep fighting. They raise taxes. They borrow. They mortgage the future. They will do anything rather than surrender. But here were Roosevelt’s friends offering even-money bets that the war would be over before Christmas, bets of 2 to 1 that it would be over by Easter, bets “that it was humanly impossible—physically impossible—for a European war to last for six months—odds of 4 to 1, and so forth and so on. Well, actually I must have won those—they were small, five dollar bets—I must have made a hundred dollars. I wish I had bet a lot more. There was the best economic opinion in the world that the continuance of war was absolutely dependent on money in the bank. Well, you know what happened.”
On his arrival at the Navy Department in Washington, he found the same myopic bewilderment that he had encountered on the train. He scribbled a note to Eleanor on August 1: “A complete smash up is inevitable, and there are a great many problems for us to consider. Mr. D. totally fails to grasp the situation and I am to see the President Monday A.M. to go over our own situation.… These are history-making days. It will be the greatest war in the world’s history.”
The following day, he wrote her a much longer, more detailed letter outlining his forebodings of the future and his frustrations of the moment. It shows how clearly he understood what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic.
At last I have time to write you a real letter. I posted a line on the train last night, and on arrival went straight to the Department, where, as I expected, I found everything asleep and apparently utterly oblivious to the fact that the most terrible drama in history was about to be enacted.…
To my astonishment on reaching the Dept. nobody seemed the least bit excited about the European crisis—Mr. Daniels feeling chiefly very sad that his faith in human nature and civilization and similar idealistic nonsense was receiving such a rude shock. So I started in alone to get things ready and prepare plans for what ought to be done by the Navy end of things. Friday I worked all day on these lines, and actually succeeded in getting one ship north from Mexico.
These dear good people like W.J.B. and J.D. have as much conception of what a general European war means as Elliott [their four-year-old son] has of higher mathematics. They really believe that because we are neutral we can go about our business as usual. To my horror, just for example, J.D. told the newspaper men he thought favorably of sending our fleet to Europe to bring back marooned Americans!
Aside from the fact that tourists (female etc.) couldn’t sleep in hammocks and that battleships haven’t got passenger accommodations, he totally fails to grasp that this war between the other powers is going inevitably to give rise to a hundred different complications in which we shall have a direct interest. Questions of refugees, of neutrality, of commerce are even now appearing and we should unquestionably gather our fleet together and get it into the highest state of efficiency. We still have 12 battleships at Vera Cruz—their “materiel” has suffered somewhat, their “personnel” a great deal! The rest of the fleet is scattered to the four winds—they should be assembled and prepared. Some fine day the State Department will want the moral backing of a “fleet in being” and it won’t be there.
All this sounds like borrowing trouble I know but it is my duty to keep the Navy in a position where no chances, even the most remote, are taken. Today we are taking chances and I nearly boil over when I see the cheery “mañana” way of doing business.
Two hours ago a telegram from Badger [Admiral Charles J. Badger, Commander of the Atlantic Fleet] came in asking for information about the war and instructions as to neutrality. Nobody had thought it necessary to keep him in touch! And yet he has a German, a French and an English cruiser off Vera Cruz!…
There seems no hope now of averting the crash. Germany has invaded France according to this afternoon’s report. The best that can be expected is either a sharp, complete and quick victory by one side, a most unlikely occurrence, or a speedy realization of impending bankruptcy by all, and cessation by mutual consent, but this too is I think unlikely as history shows that money in spite of what the bankers say is not an essential to the conduct of a war by a determined nation.
Toward the end of his letter, he set aside any pretense of objectivity and made his own feelings clear:
Rather than long drawn-out struggle I hope that England will join in and with France and Russia force peace at Berlin!