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Description: | obverse design: President Woodrow Wilson, half-length caricature figure, full face slightly turned to left.
Anachronistically he wears elaborately cusped plate armour and holds in his gauntlets a document bearing the text - 'NOTE AN DEUTSCH
VNVERZUG EINSTELLV D.U.BOOT KRIEG ABBRVC'. To the right of Wilson the figure of 'Justice', personified by a small naked and blindfolded
female holding a set of scales aloft in her left hand. Hanging from the scales is a broadsheet dated '20 APRIL 1916'
obverse text: 'ENTWEDER-ODER-'
reverse design: armoured gauntlets, pair of, holding a document bearing the Imperial German seal and thirteen lines of embossed Gothic
script - 'Der. U. Boot Waffe leisten wir nicht Verzicht! völkerrechtswid rige Methoden England vom Zaume bricht den Krieg Ihr Kürztet so
Ihr stellt die Waffenlieferung ein Wilson will doch der best Neutrale sein!'
reverse text: 'DEVTSCHE.ANTWORT AN-AMERIKA'
In this dense satirical medal Goetz crams his design with detail and legalistic argument, aiming at what he saw was the
biased neutrality of the USA in 1916, that failed to see the illegalities and crimes of Britain, and preferred instead to persecute,
unfairly, the prosecution of the war by Germany. The medal specifically commemorates the reaction of the USA to the German unrestricted U-
boat campaign, notably the sinking of the 'Sussex', the Folkestone-Dieppe cross-Channel steamer, on 23 March 1916 and the German reply to
President Wilson's subsequent pronouncement. Among the 50 passengers drowned on the 'Sussex' were three Americans. The text on the document
is translated as 'Memorandum to Germany to discontinue submarine war without delay or else diplomatic relations will be severed'. Obverse
text translated as 'Either - or'. The text on the document in the reverse design is translated as 'We will not refrain from the U-boat
weapon. England's methods violate international law. The war can be shortened by discontinuing the supply of ammunition. America wants to
be the best neutral'. The reverse text is translated as 'German reply to America'. | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | Woodrow satirical Naval Operations & German Submarine Campaign commemorative First World War USA's reaction to & 1916 Wilson | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Goetz, Karl | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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