World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

January 17, 1916, 6:30 a.m.

The SS Cabot cut through the leaden waters of the Chesapeake Bay, slowly making its way to Baltimore Harbor Pier No. 3. This 18,000-ton British liner had an unremarkable exterior; its dark grey hull bore only a single line of small white lettering bearing its name, and the Cunard Company's red and black funnel paint on its smokestacks was faded. But near its waterline, a closer look revealed traces of recent repairs—a souvenir of a near miss by a German U-boat a few months earlier in the mid-Atlantic.

Herbert Henry Asquith stood at the porthole of the captain's cabin, watching the gradually clearer outline of the dock. He wore a dark gray wool coat, the collar turned up tightly to ward off the biting wind blowing in from the bay. The sixty-five-year-old prime minister looked older than his age, with heavy bags under his eyes and deep, knife-like lines around his mouth. He held a cup of long-cold black tea in his hand, but didn't drink a drop.

"Twenty minutes until we dock, Prime Minister."

The speaker was his personal secretary, Maurice Hankey, a shrewd man in his early forties with thinning hair. Hankey held a folder with three documents labeled in different colors—red for urgent intelligence, blue for today's schedule, and yellow for backup materials.

"Arrangements on shore?" Asquith's voice was a little hoarse; ten consecutive days at sea had made his throat uncomfortable.

"It's been handled with the 'lowest discretion' principle in mind." Hankey opened the blue folder. "Mr. Phillips, the Third Assistant Secretary of State, was sent by the State Department to receive the ship. There were no military representatives, no band, and no press corps. Our motorcade will be escorted by four motorcycles dispatched by the Baltimore Police Department, heading directly to Union Station to catch the 10:15 special train to Washington."

"special train?"

"It was a regular first-class car of the Pennsylvania Railroad, attached to the 'Capitol Express.' Upon arrival in Washington, the convoy entered the West Wing of the White House via an underground passage. The entire journey was not recorded on any public schedule."

Asquith nodded, his gaze returning to the window. Several dark figures could already be seen on the dock, moving like silhouettes in the morning mist. Further away, the skyline of Baltimore appeared cold and unfamiliar in the winter dawn.

"Do they know why we're here?" he suddenly asked.

Hankey paused. "Wall Street knows a part of it. The State Department knows we requested a meeting, but not the specific agenda. As for the general public..." He smiled wryly. "The Baltimore Sun has an eighty-word headline on page three today: 'British trade delegation arrives in the US, possibly to discuss postwar economic cooperation.'"

"The postwar period," Asquith repeated the word, his tone laced with sarcasm, "They think we've already started discussing the postwar period."

There was a gentle knock on the captain's cabin door. Sir Sir Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty, entered, carrying a newly declassified telegram. The 68-year-old Conservative elder looked worse than Asquith, with dark circles under his eyes, but his gaze remained sharp as an eagle's.

"The latest battle report from London," Balfour said without pleasantries. "Last night, the Germans launched a new probing attack in the Ypres salient. We lost eight hundred men, mostly ANZAC troops. Worse still—the French have privately indicated that they may not be able to hold out until next spring's offensive."

Asquith took the telegram and quickly scanned the cold numbers. Eight hundred men. Another battalion had disappeared from the list. He recalled what Lord Kitchener had said in the War Department's underground operations room before he left London: "If we don't receive reinforcements of at least thirty divisions by March next year, the entire right flank of the Western Front could collapse. At that point, Paris will be defenseless."

Thirty divisions. Six hundred thousand men. Britain simply couldn't muster that many.

"What about the country of cherry blossoms?" Asquith asked.

"Saionji Kinmochi is still stalling," Balfour said in a low voice. "Chen Feng has put pressure on him, demanding that he supply both Britain and Germany simultaneously. The current situation is that we promised 250 pounds per person, while the Germans are asking for 280. Saionji wants to wait for the best price."

"Greedy monkeys," Asquith muttered under his breath, then waved his hand dismissively. "Never mind. Once we get back from Melica, if we've secured enough of the loan... we'll raise the price to three hundred. We need men, the sooner the better."

Balfour opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end only nodded. He walked to the other side of the porthole, looking at the approaching coastline of Merica. This country, this continent, so vast, so rich, yet seemed as unreachable as if separated by a pane of glass.

"Do you think Wilson will listen to us?" Balfour suddenly asked.

Asquith remained silent for a long time.

"He will listen," the Prime Minister finally said, "but not to our moral pronouncements, our democracy, or our 'responsibility to the civilized world.' He will listen to the numbers, to the interests, to the tangible things that his country—and more importantly, his voters—can understand."

The ship's horn sounded, deep and resonant. The Cabot began to turn, tilting slightly as it approached the berth. On the dock, several men in black overcoats were already waiting, with three black Packard luxury cars parked beside them.

Hankey glanced at his pocket watch: "We'll dock at seven o'clock sharp. Prime Minister, we should prepare to disembark."

Asquith took one last sip of cold tea and placed the cup on the table. He straightened his coat, took a deep breath, as if he were heading not for diplomatic negotiations, but for another front.

"Remember," he told Balfour and Hankey, "every word we say and every expression we make from the moment we set foot on this land is part of the war. And this is a war we must win."

11:20 a.m., underground passageway of the West Wing of the White House.

The wheels screeched low on the concrete. Asquith sat in the back of the third car, observing the unusual entrance through the tinted windows—no signs, no guard booths, just two heavy steel doors slowly sliding open. The convoy entered a dimly lit tunnel, flanked by exposed pipes and cables.

"This is the 'Presidential Emergency Access Line'," Assistant Secretary of State Phillips, sitting in the passenger seat, turned and explained. "It was built during President McKinley's administration and is theoretically only accessible to the President and a select few senior officials. President Woodrow granted special permission for this use to ensure the complete confidentiality of your itinerary."

Asquith nodded politely in thanks. He noticed that the beautiful officer was about fifty years old, spoke with the reserved accent typical of New England, and had a cautious yet shrewd look in his eyes. A typical career diplomat, he wouldn't easily reveal his true thoughts.