1920: America's Great War-eARC by Robert Conroy

your nation will incur the full wrath of the Kaiser’s Reich.”
    “Your kaiser is insane.”
    Bernsdorff laughed. “Quite possibly, but, as you say, crazy like a fox. The kaiser is totally unlike your saintly and naïve fool President Wilson. By the by, don’t even think of a formal declaration of war. If you do that, the remainder of the German High Seas Fleet will leave German waters and commence the destruction of America’s east coast ports, after, of course, destroying your small navy. Following that, the mighty German Army will invade your east coast at points of its choosing and crush what remains of the United States. The result will be a peace that deprives you of far more than the four states now involved. Sign a peace and you will be able to retain northern California, Oregon, Washington, and the territory of Alaska. Don’t and you will lose them as well, along with God knows what else along the east coast. Perhaps we’ll take Florida and New Orleans.”
    Lansing’s face was turning red. “Bernsdorff, have you forgotten the extent to which the United States mobilized in previous wars, such as our Civil War? This is now a nation of more than a hundred million people and they will not stand to have four states taken from her.”
    Bernsdorff laughed. “Your people will accept reality. France has had to deal with the loss of Alsace and Lorraine and parts of the Normandy coast, and has survived, although as a bloody mess. Denmark lost Schleswig and Holstein in the last century, and other nations have lost territories as well. Such fluctuations and corrections are the way of the world. Borders are fluid and sophisticated nations, not childlike ones like yours, understand that reality. After all, didn’t you enhance your borders as the expense of Mexico? You are not being asked to like it, merely accept it as reality and move on.
    “And as to your population of more than a hundred million, don’t forget that many of them are ethnic Germans who will not support you in a war against us and will likely rise up against you in a second civil war that will totally involve and overwhelm your disreputable little army. You will have a bloodbath within your borders as you try to defend against us. And as to the rest of your population, many of them are immigrants who don’t speak English and can’t even spell America. Did you know, sir, that fully three quarters of the population of New York City is foreign born? No, we are not afraid of your numbers. They are an illusion.”
    “Get out of here.”
    Bersndorff blinked. “Sir?”
    Lansing stood. His face was red with fury. “Get the hell out of here! You attacked innocent people without provocation or warning. Dastardly! You people are cowardly barbarians.”
    Bernsdorff stood and walked towards the door of the Oval Office. His dismissal was nothing more than what he expected. He had a message to deliver and had done it. Now he would have to leave a country he rather enjoyed and return to a rather sterile Berlin. A shame, he thought. He would really like to remain and see just what the Americans would do and how they would do it.
    He turned. “I will prepare a more diplomatic memorandum than what just transpired between us in privacy. Perhaps it will provide you with some political shelter.”
    Lansing laughed harshly. He was breathing hard and his pulse was racing with anger. “Don’t bother. Thanks to Thomas Edison’s marvelous phonograph, all of what you said was recorded. Copies will be made and sent about the country while transcripts are provided to national and international news services. Your perfidy will be totally public.”
    Bernsdorff was shocked. “That is not gentlemanly, sir. Our conversation was between the two of us.”
    Lansing stood and wanted to punch the man. “Is a surprise and sneak invasion of another nation a German’s definition of gentlemanly? Once again, get the hell out of my office before I have you thrown out.”
    “Since you