When he arrived in New York the German drive on Paris had failed because in two months the Germans had used up ammunition they confidently expected to last three times as long; the English and French in the west could not take up the offensive because ammunition was not being turned out fast enough; the Russian drive into Germany and Austria would soon fail for lack of arms and bullets. In the winter and spring of 1915 the Russians had made a drive into Galicia and Austria, hurling the Austro-German armies back. They advanced victoriously through the first range of the Carpathian mountains until May. Meantime the German General Staff, as von Rintelen knew, was preparing for a retaliating offensive. The War Staff knew Russia's limited capacity to produce arms and ammunition, knew that during the winter, with the port of Archangel closed by ice, her only source for new supplies lay in the single-track Siberian railway bringing materials from Japan. Rintelen realized that by spring the Russian resources had been well nigh exhausted and he resolved that they must be shut off completely. He knew that England and France could not help. But spring had already come, and the ships were sailing for Archangel laden with American shells.
Von Rintelen's reputation was at stake. The work for which he had been so carefully trained was bound to fail unless he acted quickly. He exchanged many wireless communications with his superiors in Berlin--messages that looked like harmless expressions between his wife and himself, messages in which the names of American officers who had been in Berlin were used both as code words and as a means to impress their genuineness upon the American censor. He received in reply still greater authority than he had on the eve of his departure from Germany. In his quick, staccato fashion he often boasted (and there is foundation for part of what he said) that he had been sent to America by the General Staff, backed by "$50,000,000, yes $100,000,00"; that he was an agent plenipotentiary and extraordinary, ready to take any measure on land and sea to stop the making of munitions, to halt their transportation at the factory or at the seaboard. He mapped out a campaign, remarkable in its detail, scope, recklessness and utter disregard of American institutions.