THE BEGINNING OF 1917 AND THE END
At the end of 1916, the affair of the Islands was practically
settled. Every now and then a newspaper put forth a rumour that
brought up the question again. _Copenhagen_, a journal which was very
well written, announced as a secret just discovered, that the United
States, even after Congress had appropriated the $25,000,000 for the
sale of the Islands, would not agree to accept them at once. This
excited much discussion which, however, was soon stopped. It was
remarkable how the fury and fire of the controversy disappeared.
People seemed to forget all the hard names they had called one
another. I forgave the _National News_, and later even attempted to
get printing material for the paper from the United States. The need
of printing material had become so great, that an attempt was made to
print one edition in coal tar! The embargo was drastic. If the
_National News_ had had a good case against me and interfered with
the sale, perhaps I might not have been so forgiving; one's motives
are always mixed.
New difficulties were coming upon us, and I think that most of our
diplomatic representatives knew that we were unprepared for them.
Since the opening of the war, we had been adjured to be neutral. That
was sometimes hard enough. But, as it seemed inevitable that our
country must be drawn into the war (though we were told that the
popular air at home was 'I Did not Raise My Boy to be a Soldier') it
seemed necessary to be prepared. Captain Totten--now Colonel--our
military attaché, urged 'preparedness' in season and out of season.
The position of a Minister who wants to be prepared for a coming
conflict, but is obliged to act as if no contest were possible, is
not an easy one. Besides, through the departure of Mr. Francis
Hagerup, the Norwegian Minister, to Stockholm, I had become Dean of
the Diplomatic Corps. I represented, when I went to Court officially,
the Central Powers as well as their enemies. 'You are Atlas,' the
king said, when I presented myself as Dean for the first time; 'you
bear all the Powers of the world on your shoulders!'
He regretted that the Foreign Ministers could not meet at a neutral
Court on occasions of ceremony. I think His Majesty believed that the
members of the diplomatic corps were in the position of the heralds
of the elder time--exempt, at least outwardly, from all the hatreds
developed by the war, and ready to look on the enemy of to-day as
their friend of to-morrow. This is good diplomacy; I agreed with His
Majesty, but wondered whether, if His Majesty's country was in the
position of Belgium, he would have instructed his Minister to be
polite to the representative of the invader. I had my doubts, for if
there were ever a king passionately devoted to his country, it is
King Christian X. After the sinking of the _Lusitania_, my position
would have been terribly difficult, if my German and Austrian
colleagues had not acted in a way that made it possible for me to
forget that I had said, on hearing of Bernstorff's warning, 'The day
after an American is killed without warning at sea, we will declare
war!' It was undiplomatic; but I had said it to Count Rantzau, to
Prince Wittgenstein, to Count Raben-Levitzau, to Prince Waldemar, to
the Princes, to other persons, and, I think, at the Foreign Office. A
very distinguished German had replied, in the true Junker spirit,
'But your great Government would not bring a war on itself for the
sake of the lives of a few hundred _bourgeoisie_.' And, when I stood,
foolish and confounded, recognising that the time had not come for
our Government to act, he said: 'You see you were wrong. Your
Government is not so altruistic as you thought, nor so ready to bring
new disasters on the world.'
Count Rantzau always took a moderate tone. When in difficulty he
could switch the conversation to a passage in the _Memoirs_ of St.
Simon, or some other chronicle--a little frivolous--of the past.
Count Szchenyi was hard hit--his brother-in-law, Mr. Vanderbilt, had
perished among the _bourgeoisie_ on the _Lusitania_; it was a subject
to be avoided. Prince von Wittgenstein simply said that it was a pity
that the _Lusitania_ carried munitions of war, though they were not
high explosives, but he made no excuses. It was evident that these
gentlemen regretted the horrible crime.
The few Germans one met in society were inclined to blame what they
called the stupidity of the captain of the steamship; they had the
testimony of the hearing taken from the London _Times_, at their
finger ends, and they knew 'the name of the firm in Lowell,
Massachusetts, whose ammunition had been exported on the
_Lusitania_.' Their opinions I always heard at second-hand. A great
Danish lady, whose family the King of Prussia and the present Emperor
had honoured, sent me from the country all the signed portraits of
the Kaiser, torn to pieces. 'I could not write,' she said afterwards
at dinner, 'I could not say what I thought,--I had promised my
husband to be silent,--but you know what I meant,' and she added in
Danish, 'damn little Willie!'
The only place in which representatives of the warring nations saw
one another was in church, that is, in the church of St. Ansgar; but
Count Szchenyi and Prince von Wittgenstein were always so deeply
engaged in prayer that they could not see the French Minister or the
Belgian. The English church--one of the most beautiful in
Copenhagen--was frequented only by the English and a few Americans,
so the Rector, the Rev. Dr. Kennedy, was never troubled about the
position of his pews, nor was the Russian pope across the street from
St. Ansgar's.
Mr. Francis Hagerup had been a model Dean. Everybody trusted and
respected him; it seemed a pity that he should go away from
Copenhagen, after such good service, without the usual testimonial
from the diplomatic corps; but there were difficulties in the way.
Would Sir Henry Lowther, the English, and Baron de Buxhoevenden, the
Russian Minister, permit their names to go on a piece of plate with
those of Count Brockdorff-Rantzau and Count Szchenyi? Count Szchenyi,
always kindness itself, had his eye on two silver vegetable dishes of
the true Danish-Rosenborg type. He consulted me as the Dean. I wanted
Mr. Hagerup to have these beautiful things, and Szchenyi seemed to
think that the matter could be arranged. I agreed to get the
signatures to the proposition, expressed in French, that the dishes
should be bought from the court jeweller, the famous Carl Michelsen,
who had designed them. I doubt whether any of the Tiffanys have more
foreign decorations than Michelsen; it is worth while being a
jeweller and an artist in Denmark.
The gift was to show the unusual honour to an unusual Dean, offered
by all the diplomatic corps in time of war. I had the opinion of the
ladies sounded; they were all against it, especially one of the most
intellectual ladies of the diplomatic corps, Madame de Buxhoevenden.
She warned me that my attempt would be a failure. However, I sent the
paper out, done in the most diplomatic French. Hans, our messenger,
asked for the ladies first. If they were at home, he waited for
another day. After I had all the signatures and they were engraved on
the dishes, the Baroness de Buxhoevenden bore down on me, warlike.
'Quelle horreur,' she said. 'How did you get my husband's name?'
'When you were out!' I said.
'I think it disgraceful all the same, that my husband's name should
appear on the same plate with those of the enemies of my country.'
'On the second plate, Madame, the enemies' appear,' I
answered,--'there are two!'
Hagerup was so touched when I took the plates to him that I saw tears
in his eyes. The Baroness de Buxhoevenden remained very friendly to
me, 'because,' she said, 'she loved my wife so much.' Not long after,
she died in Russia, heartbroken. She had faced the inclemencies of
the weather and the first outbreak of the Revolution (she was a sane
woman, an imperialist, but one who would have had imperialism reform
itself, well-read and deeply religious) to see her daughter, the
young Baroness Sophie, who was one of the maids of honour to the late
Czarina. This young lady was ill and imprisoned with the imperial
family. She was the only child of the Buxhoevendens--their son, a
brave soldier, having died some years before. You can imagine the
anxiety of the Buxhoevendens when the unrestrained ferocity of the
mob in Petrograd broke out. Madame de Buxhoevenden could not see her
daughter, though, thanks to the American Ambassador, who never failed
to do a kind thing for us in Copenhagen, she managed to have a
message from her. A lover of Russia, like her husband, of order, of
reason in Government, she died.
With all the Russians I knew, love of country was a passion. They
might differ among themselves. Meyendorff might look on Bibikoff as a
'clever boy' and smile amicably at his vagaries; Bibikoff might
declare that 'Baron Meyendorff had, as St. Simon said of the Regent
d'Orleans, all the talents, but the talent of using them'; but they
were fervently devoted to Russia. They were in a labyrinth, and, as
at the time of the French Revolution, everybody differed in opinion
as to the best way out. It was from the Russians I first heard of
Prince Karl Lichnowsky. I think it was Meyendorff, who once said:
'The Austrian Ambassador to London and Prince Lichnowsky are such
honest men that the Prussians find it easy to deceive them into
deceiving the English as to the designs of Germany!'
One great difficulty would have stood in the way, had I, as Dean,
been willing to accept the kindly hint of the king and attempt to
arrange that all the corps should go as usual together at New Years
and on birthdays to Court. There was the conduct of the German
Government to the French Ambassador at the opening of the war. It was
frightfully rude, even savage, and unprecedented. It shocked
everybody. It will be difficult to explain it when relations between
the belligerents are resumed again. It seems to be a minor matter,
but it corroborated the variation of the old proverb,--'Scratch a
Prussian and you find a Hun.' The tale of the insults heaped on the
French Ambassador is a matter of record for all time.
Judge Gerard has told his own story.
The Russian ladies coming out of Berlin were treated no better than a
group of cocottes driven from a city might have been. The condition
of the Russian ladies when they reached Copenhagen was deplorable.
They all possessed the inevitable string of pearls, which every
Russian young girl of the higher class receives before her marriage.
These and the clothes they wore were all they were allowed to bring
out of the super-civilised city of Berlin. It did not prevent them
from smiling a little at the plight of the old Princess de ----, one
of the haughtiest and richest of the noble ladies, who loved the
baths of Germany more than her compatriots approved of. Her carefully
dressed wig--never touched before except by the tender fingers of her
two maids--was lifted off her head, while the German soldiers looked
underneath it for secret documents!
From all this it will be seen that, notwithstanding the politeness of
the representatives of the Central Powers in Copenhagen, it would
have been impossible for the diplomatic corps to unite itself in the
same room, even for a moment.
Everybody went to see Mr. Francis Hagerup off; but this was at the
railway station, where people were not obliged to seem conscious of
one another's presence. This would have been impossible at Court.
Social life in Copenhagen has fixed traditions (very fixed, in spite
of the democracy of the people); they make it delightful. Society is
all the better for fixed, artificial rules. They enable everybody to
know his place and produce that ease that cannot exist where there
is a constant expectancy of the unexpected; but they were not proof
against the savagery which Germany's action had indicated.
When Count Szchenyi's mother died, his colleagues, disliking the
action of his country as they did, sent messages of condolence
privately, through me, then a 'neutral.' When Madame de Buxhoevenden
died, deep sympathy was expressed by the diplomatists on the other
side, but the utter disregard, on the part of the Germans in Berlin
for the ordinary decencies of social life caused society in
Copenhagen to become resentful and cold and suspicious whenever a
German appeared in a 'neutral' house. It seemed incredible that
hatred should have so carried away those around the German Emperor,
who had formerly seemed only too anxious to observe the smallest
social decencies, that the civilised world was willing to retort in
kind.
Even in the convents, the German Sisters were 'suspect,' and it took
all the tact of the Superiors to emphasise the fact that these ladies
by their vows were bound to look on all with the eyes of Christ.
'Yes,' a Belgian Sister had answered, 'with the eyes He turned to the
impenitent thief!'
However, religious discipline is strong, and it is the business of
those set apart from the world to overcome even their righteous
anger. Still, when I saw the expression on the face of the Abbé de
Noë, who had been a Papal Zouave and was still at heart a French
soldier, on a great festival, as he gave the kiss of peace to two
German priests on the altar steps, I felt that the grace of God is
compelled sometimes to run uphill!
Commercial transactions formed a great part of the work of the
Legation when Great Britain began seriously to restrain alien foreign
trade and to put a firm hand on such neutrals as adopted the motto
of some of the English merchants, before they were awakened,
'Business as usual.' I am afraid that I gave little satisfaction; our
instructions were not precise. That some of our great business people
should have fallen into a panic after August 1914,--men of the
highest ability, of the most scientific imagination, who foresaw
contingencies to the verge of the impossible--seemed amazing. In
conversation with some of these gentlemen as late as the spring of
1914, when I had come home to deliver some lectures at Harvard
University, I was convinced that they knew what Germany's aims were
in the East. They were aware of the negotiations regarding the Bagdad
Railway and the opposition which existed between German and Russian
claims. How long would Germany be satisfied with the English and
Russian predominance?
They discussed this. Some of them had travelled much in Germany; they
were willing to admit that the Balkan question could be settled only
by war. In 1914, Secretary Bryan seemed to be sure that no war cloud
threatened. When I saw him early in that year, he was entirely
absorbed in the Mexican question and in extending the knowledge of
the minutiæ of the Sacred Scriptures among American travellers in
Palestine. I had just opened my lips (having silently listened to the
most delectable eloquence I have ever heard) to say that Russia had
begun to mobilise and that Germany would be ready to pounce by
September, when Mr. John Lind came in, and the Secretary had
attention for no other man. The affairs of Europe faded.
The Germans, as far as I could see, had great hopes of a breakdown of
the Allies through treachery in the French Government itself. From
such private information as we could get, it seemed that they relied
on treachery among the Italians--especially among the 'Reds.' There
is a French lady who wore the pearls of the Deutsche Bank, whose
husband they had bought, and there were others it was said.
Our means of getting private information was not great. We had no
money for secret service or for organisation. When we went into the
war, our Legation had neither the offices nor the staff to meet the
event. This was not the fault of the State Department, but of the
system on which it rests. It was necessary to have a decent official
place in which to receive people, a place which was elegant and
simple at the same time. This we had, but barely room enough for
ordinary work.
If a distinguished visitor came, he was ushered into the salon or the
dining-room. If Sir Ralph Paget, the British Minister, came hurriedly
on business a moment after Count Szchenyi arrived, he was shown into
the dining-room, as the three offices were always full of people.
After the war opened, the Legation--a very elegant apartment, which I
secured through the foresight of my predecessor, Mr. T. I.
O'Brien--was often like a bit of scenery in a modern French farce,
where people disappear behind all kinds of screens and curtains in
order to avoid embarrassments. Mr. Allard, the Belgian, to whom we
were devoted, came one day by appointment, and almost met Prince
Wittgenstein in the salon, while the Turkish Minister held the
dining-room, confronted by Lady Paget, who was led off to Mrs. Egan's
rooms on pretence of hearing a Victrola which happened to have been
lent to somebody a few days before.
The State Department would have permitted me to rent, on urgent
request, a satisfactory place, but the coal bill would have amounted
to three thousand dollars a year. As I had not recovered from the
expenses of the entertainment of the Atlantic Squadron (they were
small enough considering the pleasure the gentlemen of that squadron
gave us) and other outlays, I felt that the coal bill would be too
great, and even with the war cloud on the horizon, the State
Department was not in a position to give us a reasonable amount of
money or the necessary rooms for a staff such as the British had been
obliged to collect. The British Government owned its own house, which
answered the demands made on it. The fiery Captain Totten gave the
Legation no peace. We were not prepared; we knew it. It would have
absorbed twenty thousand dollars to put us on an efficient basis. And
our staff for the very delicate work must be specialists; one cannot
pick up specialists for the salary paid to a secretary of Legation or
even to a Minister.
It is different to-day; the old system has broken down now. Money is
supplied, even to that most starved of all the branches of the
service, the State Department, where men, like ten I could name, work
for salaries which a third rate bank clerk in New York would
refuse--and poor men too! As things were, the Legation did the best
it could.
The greatest difficulty was to get trustworthy information. What were
the German military plans? What were the social conditions in
Germany? As to financial conditions, it was comparatively easy to
secure information. The German financiers would never have consented
to the war had they not scientifically analysed the situation.
Industrials, like Herr Ballin, counted on a short war; they had
provided. We knew, too, that the military authorities, which overrode
the civil, believed that the Foreign Office could manage to
ameliorate the consequences of their insolence and arrogance. It was
strange that these very military authorities thought that the United
States would not fight under any circumstances, for they had
voluminous reports in their archives on the details of our military
position. Our Government had always been generous in giving
information to foreign military attachés. In fact, a German officer
once boasted to me that his war office had filed the secrets of every
military establishment in the world, except the Japanese.
That we were despised for our inaction was plain; Americans were
treated with contempt by certain Austrian officials, until some
enterprising newspaper announced that a great army of American
students had made a hostile demonstration in New York against
Germany! A change took place at once; even in France, it was believed
that the United States would make only a commercial war. I remember
that the Vicomte de Faramond, who deserves the credit of having
unveiled Prussian schemes before many of his brother diplomatists
even guessed at them, asked me anxiously, 'You _must_ fight, but is
it true that it will be only a commercial war? I think, if I know
America, that you will fight with bayonets.' He has an American wife.
Ambassador Gerard was quietly warning Americans to leave Berlin; and
yet we were 'neutral,' and the German Government believed that we
would remain neutral at least in appearance. No German seemed to
believe that we were neutral at heart, though there were those among
the expatriated who held that we ought to be, in spite of the
_Lusitania_ and our traditions. One of the puzzles of this was (every
American in Copenhagen tried to solve it) the effect that a long
residence in Germany had on Americans. 'I sometimes read the English
papers,' said one of these; 'I try to be fair, but I am shocked by
their calumnies. The Kaiser loves the United States; he has said it
over and over again to Americans, and yet you will not believe it.'
'Belgium!'
'Oh, the Germans have made a fruitful and orderly country out of
Belgium.'
This kind of American helped to deceive the Germans into the belief
that our patience would endure all the insults of Cataline. There was
very little opportunity to compare notes with my colleagues in Sweden
and Norway. They were busy men. I fancy Mr. Morris's real martyrdom
did not begin in Sweden until after Easter Sunday, 1917. Mr.
Schmedeman doubtless had his when the rigours of the embargo struck
Norway; but for me, the worst time was when we were 'neutral'!
As to the German Foreign Office, why should it listen to the warnings
of our Ambassador, in November, who might be recalled by a change of
administration in March?
Six months before election, no American envoy has any real influence
at the Foreign Office with which he deals. The chances are that the
policy of the last four years will be reversed by the election in
November. Up to the last moment, as far as I could see, the Foreign
Office in Berlin believed that the growing warlike democratic
attitude would be softened by the new Administration, which, it was
informed, would not dare to make Colonel Roosevelt Secretary of
State.
'Secretary of State,' an Austrian said, 'how could an ex-President
condescend to become Secretary of State. One might as well expect a
deposed Pope to become Grand Electeur!'
Previous to November 7th, 1916, the day of the Presidential election,
our situation was looked on by all the diplomatists and all the
Foreign Offices as fluid. It might run one way or the other. There
was a widely diffused opinion in Denmark that, as President Wilson
had been elected on a peace platform for his first term, Germany
might go as far as she liked without drawing the United States into
the conflict.
In Berlin, in high circles, the election of Mr. Hughes was considered
certain. He was supposed to represent capital, and capital would
think twice before burning up values. The Kaiser had given Colonel
Roosevelt up; 'Sa conduite est une grande illusion pour notre
Empereur,' Count Brockdorff-Rantzau had said. I learned from Berlin
that the ex-President had been approached by a representative of
the Kaiser of sufficient rank, who had reminded Colonel Roosevelt of
the honours the Kaiser had showered upon him during his European
tour. 'I was also well received by the King of the Belgians,'
Colonel Roosevelt answered. 'C'est une grande illusion,' Count
Brockdorff-Rantzau repeated, more in sorrow than in anger. 'The
Emperor did not think that the ex-President would turn against him!'
Until election day, every American diplomatist in Europe merely
marked time. He represented a Government which was without power for
the time being.
An expatriated Irish-American came in to sound us as to the
prospects. 'President Wilson will have a second term,' I said; 'the
West is with him, and Mr. Hughes's speeches are not striking at the
heart of the people.'
'He is pro-English, God forbid!' he said. 'Wilson means war!'
'We may have, on the other hand, Colonel Roosevelt as Secretary of
State for War.'
'God forbid!' he said. He had stepped between two stools; he still
lives in Germany--a man without a country.
We were still 'neutral,' and the election was some months off. Count
Rantzau saw the danger which the military party was courting. He was
too discreet to make confidential remarks which I would at once
repeat to my Government; he knew, of course, that I would not repeat
them to my colleagues, who never, however, asked me what he said to
me. He was equally tactful, but we saw that he was exceedingly
nervous about the outcome of the U-boat aggression. It was worth
while to know his attitude, for he represented much that was really
important in Germany. He began to be more nervous, and many things he
said, which I cannot repeat, indicated that the military party was
running amuck. He was always decent to Americans, and he was shocked
when he found that his _laissez passer_, which I obtained from him
for the Hon. D. I. Murphy and his wife to pursue their journey to
Holland, was treated as 'a scrap of paper.' Mr. Murphy had not
received the corroborative military pass, which one of my secretaries
had obtained at the proper office, consequently Mrs. Murphy was
treated shamefully at the German frontier. I remonstrated, of course,
but it was evident that the military authorities had orders to treat
all civil officials as inferiors.
Miss Boyle O'Reilly had a much worse experience at the frontier. Her
papers had been taken from her boxes at a hotel in Copenhagen,
carefully examined, and put back. Miss O'Reilly had had many
thrilling experiences (people imitated Desdemona--and loved her for
the dangers she had passed through) but like most of her compatriots
she could not be induced to disguise her opinions or to really
believe that there were spies everywhere. Being a Bostonian, she
could not say 'damn,' but she never used the name of the Kaiser
without attaching to it, with an air of perfect neutrality, the Back
Bay equivalent for that dreadful adjective. She made a great success
in Copenhagen. Her magnificent lace, presented to her by an uncle who
had been a chamberlain to Cardinal Rampolla, was extravagantly
admired at the dinner Mrs. Egan gave for her. Miss O'Reilly,
according to some of the experts present, had reason to be proud of
it. After the adventure of the note books at the hotel, it was almost
hopeless to imagine that Miss Boyle O'Reilly would be allowed to
cross the frontier, in spite of her passport and the courtesy of the
German Legation. She was undaunted as any other daughter of the gods.
She tried it, and came back, not very gently propelled, but with the
calm contentment of one who had said what she thought to various
official persons on the frontier. We were glad to get her back on any
terms. People asked for invitations to meet her; we were compelled to
adopt her as a daughter of the house to retain her. The experts in
lace were horrified to find that the vulgar creatures at the
frontier--smelling of sausage and beer--had injured the precious
texture. They seemed to have thought that its threads were barbed
wire. We protested; Miss Boyle O'Reilly demanded damages. Ambassador
Gerard seemed to be impressed by the fact that the lace had been part
of a surplice of the late Cardinal Rampolla's. We made this very
plain, but the German authorities took it very lightly; they were so
frivolous, so lacking in tact and justice, that Miss Boyle O'Reilly
became more 'neutral' than ever.
In spite of Count Rantzau's courtesy, we were having constant trouble
at the frontier. Every Dane who had relatives in the United States
expected us to protest against the rigidity of the search. 'I did not
mind when they took all my letters; but when they rubbed me with
lemon juice to bring out secret writing, I said it was too much';
said one of these ladies, who had to be escorted to her own Foreign
Office.
Mrs. William C. Bullitt, just married, had to be coached into
'neutrality.' 'Good gracious! I always say what I think,' she
remarked, declaring that, of course, the German, His Serene Highness
she was to go into dinner with, must see how wrong the Belgian
business was! Mr. and Mrs. Bullitt had some trouble at the frontier,
but her diary, uncensored, came over safe for our delight.
The Spanish Minister, Aguera, who had lately been superseded by his
brother, had his own troubles, which, however, he wore very lightly.
He was as neutral as his temperament, which was rather positive,
allowed him to be. When he left to be promoted, the pro-Germans
enthusiastically announced that the German Government had complained
of him to Madrid.
The cause of the war, it was generally conceded, was the question of
the way to the Near East and the control of the East. Now that
Germany had practically all of the Bagdad Railway and more than that,
a clear way to the Persian Gulf, would she cut short the war, if she
could? Count Rantzau, without explicitly admitting that his country's
chief aim had been accomplished, said Yes. The great desire of his
nation was for peace. The U-boat war was only a means of forcing
peace. 'We do not want to crush England! Heaven forbid!' said Count
Szchenyi, 'but we tolerate the U-boat war only as an instrument for
obliging England to make peace. Peace,' he said, 'we must have peace
or all the world will be in anarchy,' I do not think he 'accepted'
the U-boat war, except diplomatically. Another distinguished
representative of one of the Central Powers, making a flying visit,
said, first assuming that the 'North American' and English interests
were identical--'Peace may bring Germany and England close together.
We are too powerful to be kept apart. With Germany ruler of the land
of the world, and England of the sea,--what glory might we not
expect!'
'If the Allies do not accept the Chancellor's peace note, I give them
up!' cried Szchenyi. 'People talk democracy and the need of it among
us! Why, Hungary is verging on a democracy of which you Americans,
with your growing social distinctions, have no conception of. What we
want is peace, to save the world!'
When the new Emperor Karl ascended the Austro-Hungarian throne,
Szchenyi, whose ideas were more liberal than some of the old régime
liked, became a prime favourite at court, and was removed to the
Foreign Office.
Before the fall of Russia, it was generally conceded that Germany, in
holding Turkey and Bulgaria, had gained her main purpose. Both of
these countries hated her in their hearts. We had proof of this. What
more did she want? Only peace on her own terms, perhaps slightly
modified, owing to the hardness of the hearts of the English; if she
could gain England, she could deal with France and easily with
Russia. Before the Czar abdicated, it was understood in diplomatic
circles that Germany believed it was time to stop. While there was no
immediate danger of starvation in Germany, there was great
inconvenience. Moreover, the great commercial position of Germany was
each day that prolonged the war melting like ice on summer seas; and
a short war had been promised to the German nation. Parties in
Germany were divided as to indemnities and the retention of Belgium.
Antwerp was as a cannon levelled at the breast of England (Hamburg
had good reason for not wanting Antwerp retained as a rival city in
German territory); but the way to the Persian Gulf, the submission of
Bulgaria and Turkey, the possession of the key to the Balkans, the
Near East, meant the confusion of the English in India. The Germans
were ready to oust the English from their place in the sun! It was
plain that the diplomatists, at least, looked on the Alsace-Lorraine
question as of small importance in comparison. Alsace-Lorraine, as
Bismarck admitted, had nothing to do with national glory. It was a
proposition of iron and potash. As to Italy, 'We must always live on
good terms with such a dangerous neighbour,' said the Austrians.
'Prussia would throw us over to-morrow for any advantage in the East.
If she could hamstring the Slavs, we might appeal in vain against her
destroying our scraps of paper!'
We knew that the Austrian distrust of Prussia never slept. But
Austria and Germany were absolute monarchies--against the world.
It was the general belief that Rumania would not be drawn into the
war. The Swedish Legation at Rome seemed to be of a different
opinion. It was noted for the accuracy of its information, but this
time we doubted. As observers, it seemed incredible to us in
Copenhagen, that she should be allowed to sacrifice herself; but the
rumours from Rome persisted. One well-known British diplomatist, Sir
Henry Lowther, formerly the British Minister at Copenhagen, had never
wavered in his doubts as to the solidarity of Russia. At the
beginning of the war, he had said, to my astonishment, 'Our great
weakness is Russia; if you do not come in and offset it, I fear
greatly.' Events proved that he was right.
For those of the diplomatic corps who came in contact with people
from the Near East, or with the Turkish diplomatists, the great
question was--the designs of Germany in the East. One of the
advantages of diplomatic life is that one comes in contact with the
most interesting people. In spite of a determination to follow all
the rules of the protocol as closely as possible Terence's
announcement, through the lips of Chremes, was good enough for
me,--'Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto,' and consequently, I
made profit out of good talk wherever I found it. I saw too little of
Dr. Morris Jastrow, of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1908, when
he came to Copenhagen with a group of distinguished orientalists; but
one of his sentences remained in my mind (I quote from memory), 'The
crucial question, and a terrible answer it may be when Germany gives
it to the world, is, Who shall control Bulgaria and Serbia and
Constantinople. Settle the matter of the road to the East, so that
Germany and Austria may not join in monopolising it, and then, we can
begin to talk of a tranquil Europe.'
Much later, I had a long talk with Rudolph Slatin, who had been a
close friend of King Edward's, and who knew the East. He had had too
many favours from England to be willing to take arms against her; he
was Austrian, but not pro-Prussian. His views were not exactly those
of Dr. Jastrow's, as Dr. Jastrow afterwards expressed them,[17] but
one could read between the lines. The Eastern route was the real core
of the war. Russia knew this when she began to make preparations for
mobilisation in the early spring of 1914. All the Turks I met,
including the two ministers, confirmed this.
[17] In _The War and the Bagdad Railway_. J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Lady Paget, the wife of the British Minister, who came to Copenhagen
in 1916, knew more of the inside history of the war in the Balkans
than the _soi-disant_ experts who talked. She seldom talked; but the
Serbians, who adored her, did not hesitate to sing the praises of her
knowledge and of her efforts to save them. To her very few intimates
it was plain that she, as well as her husband, looked on the Balkans
as the key to the cause of the war. The Serbians that I knew, men of
all classes, said that, if Lady Paget had been listened to, Serbia
would have been saved to herself and the Allies. Whether this was
true or not, the Serbians believed it.
The missionaries driven out of Turkey who came to the Legation were
full of the Eastern situation, and the wrongs of the Armenians. The
stories of the missionaries, driven out, made one feel that Germany
was paying--even from the point of view of her longed-for
conquest--too high a price for the possession of Turkey. The Turkish
Ministers were more French than German in their sympathies, but to
them the Armenians were deadly parasites. They looked on them as the
Russian Yunker looked on the lower class of Jews.
Miss Patrick of Roberts College, passed our way. She was ardent,
sincere, naturally diplomatic,--discreet is a better word. But one
could see that the Turks and the Balkan peoples, whatever might be
their difference of opinion, or their own desire for territory, felt
that the German control meant the closing of the steel fist upon
them. The young Turks believed that they could hold the Dardanelles,
when they once turned the Germans out, and that Turkey might be the
land of the Turks. To attain this, they did not fail to appeal to
all the bigotry of the Moslem. One could see that Serbia despaired of
the Allies, that the Bulgarians believed that their untenable
position was due to the intrigues of Czar Ferdinand and to the
blundering of these same Allies. America was a land of promise, the
hope of freedom; but America seemed too far off. The Balkans peoples
felt that even America, had, while conserving her democracy at home,
cared little for the rights of the people abroad. This feeling
existed in all the neutral nations. A graduate of Roberts College
with whom I had talked of our interest in the small nations, smiled.
'The attitude of your country to the smaller nations reminds me of a
famous speech of the author of _Utopia_ when one of his household
congratulated him on Henry VIII.'s putting his arms about the
Chancellor's neck. 'If the King's Grace could gain a castle in France
by giving up my head, off it would go.' I did not dream, in January
1916, how soon we should begin to 'make the world safe for
democracy.' Mr. Vopika, our Minister to Rumania, came on the way home
from Bucharest about this time. He was full of interesting
information, and very cheerful, though practically imprisoned in
Copenhagen, as no boats were running. More and more it became plain
that Russia was breaking, and that Germany would soon be lifted from
that doubt which had begun to worry her statesmen. There was talk of
the Grand Rabbi going to Washington as Ambassador, which seemed to
infuriate the young Turkish Party.
Aaronshon, the expert for the Jewish Agricultural Society in
Palestine, came; a wonderful man, capable of great things, and shrewd
beyond the power of words to express. He did not deny that the
Turkish Crown Prince had been shot, having first fired at Enver
Pasha. Harold al Raschid is a novice to him in his knowledge of
Eastern things that Western diplomatists ought to know. From all
sources came the corroboration of the fact that, once sure of Russia,
with the Slavs in her grasp, Germany held, in her own opinion, the
keys to the world.
Opinions differed as to whether she was starving or not. Rumania had
helped her with oil and perhaps coal. The Chinese Minister at Berlin
said that she could hold out longer than China could in similar
circumstances, as his citizens would be compelled to reduce
themselves to less than two meals, and the Germans were coming down
from four! We know on the authority of the actor in the episode that
he had paid twenty marks in a restaurant in Berlin for a portion of
roast fowl; it was tough, and he laid down his knife and fork in
despair, when two ladies, at a table near him, politely asked if they
might take it!
Rumours, very disturbing, as to the conditions of Russia, came to us
from all sides. Our neighbour, Prince Valdemar, looked disturbed when
one asked as to the health of the Empress Dowager, who had been most
kind to my daughter, Carmel. He seemed to think that she would be
safe, though I heard him say that a revolution seemed inevitable. The
forcible and insolent 'conversations' on the part of Germany with
Norway--shortly before October 16th, 1916, she had actually
threatened war--had ceased for the moment.
Mr. Angel Carot, the French journalist, who was correspondent of the
Petrograd press, had reported on good authority that the Germans were
preparing a descent on Jutland. Vicomte de Faramond seemed to think
that the rumour was well founded. 'We know the point of view that
the Berlin Foreign Office has; Count Rantzau represents it,' said Mr.
de Scavenius, 'but who can not tell from day to day what the General
Staff will do?' The General Staff kept its secrets.
Poland was in a frightful condition. The Germans were not only
impoverishing the landed proprietors, but seizing their cattle and
forcing their farm people into the army. A Pole fighting for German
autocracy was in as pitiable position as a Slesviger fighting for the
enslaving of his own land. The Poles were not inclined toward a
republic, but there was not one of their noble families from whom
they would draw a constitutional king. A son of the Austrian Grand
Duke Stefan, who was popular in Poland, was much spoken of. I felt
that I ought to be flattered when a Polish prince and princess came,
well introduced, to lay the plan before me, as a diplomatist who
might assist in making a royal marriage! I concealed my surprise; but
it was delightful to hear of my 'relations avec des grandes personnes
dans toutes les chancelleries du monde.' And what a pleasure to hear,
'we know that even the Quirinal and the Vatican, etc. You who are
three times minister of the United States.' The 'three times minister
of the United States' puzzled me at first; then I remembered that one
of the German papers, I think it was _Die Woche_, had said the same
thing, meaning that I had served under three Presidents.
Our Polish guests were willing, under the circumstances, to approve
of the marriage with Archduke Stefan's son, provided a Catholic
princess, of liberal political views, could be found. To have a
German princess forced on them would mean new disturbances,--revolts,
dissatisfaction. There was perhaps the Princess Margaret of Denmark,
who had every quality, they understood, to make an ideal Queen of
Poland. 'Every quality,' I agreed, 'to make a man happy--but it must
be the right man.' I knew that Prince Valdemar, who had refused
Balkan thrones, was not desirous of marrying his daughter to a prince
'simply because he was a prince.' Would I sound His Royal Highness?
'I know,' I answered, 'that Prince Valdemar believes in happy
marriages, not in brilliant ones. In fact, I had heard him say that
he did not want Denmark to be looked on only as an arsenal for the
making of crowns.'
The prince and princess went on their way, to consult more
influential persons. They would not have welcomed a republic; in
February 1916 the German grip was strong in Poland, and a Danish
princess, the daughter of a French mother, seemed to offer them hope
in the gloom.
The fears of the Austrians, of the Russians, of the Poles, of the
Bulgarians that, if the war continued, anarchy must ensue, were not
concealed. The Polish prince and princess believed that Russia would
have a change of Government, but this change, they thought, would be
brought about by a 'palace revolution,' for Petrograd was the centre
of intrigues. The British Minister was accused of working in the
interests of the Grand Duke Nicholas; the German propaganda, as far
as we could discover, was for the practical application of 'divide
and conquer.' Baron de Meyendorff, whose cheerfulness was as
proverbial as his discretion, was uneasy; but as, unlike his chief,
Baron de Buxhoevenden, he belonged to the more liberal party, this
was taken as a sign that he was uncertain whether the new elements in
Russian political life would develop in an orderly way or not.
Baron de Buxhoevenden, the most calm, the most self-controlled of all
my colleagues, was unusually silent; his wife, than whom Russia had
no more intelligent and patriotic woman in her borders, had said that
the war would either break or make Russia. 'The Russian people,' she
said, 'since the beginning of the war, are better fed than they ever
were. The suppression of _vodka_ has enabled them to pay their taxes
and to begin to get rid of the parasites who prey on thoughtless
drunkards. Their prosperity will either induce them to rebel against
their rulers, or to accept the government because of their improved
conditions.'
'But why are they better fed?' I had asked.
'We are exporting nothing. The Russian peasant eats the food he
raises. Butter is no longer a luxury. I have hopes for Russia--and
fears.'
Her fears were justified. The murder of Rasputin called attention to
the dissensions in the Russian court. Admiring the Empress Dowager,
as everybody in the court circle did, it seemed amazing that her son,
of whom we knew little, should have permitted this peasant to acquire
such influence over his wife. There were fashionable ladies who knelt
to this strange apostle of the occult, who kissed his hands with
fervour. But murder was murder, and coming not so long after the
killing of the Crown Prince of Turkey, it gave the impression that
the oriental point of view as to the value of human life existed in
both countries. As time went on, Russia occupied our vision more and
more.
In spite of the revelations that have been made, revelations which
show that the only secrets are those buried with men who have found
it to their honour or interest to keep them--the details of the
reasons which caused Russia to mobilise in July are not fully known.
How the Russians gained their information of the intentions of
Germany in their regard is very well known. The most clever of
Russian spies was always in the confidence of the Kaiser; he paid for
his knowledge with his life.
As days passed, it became evident that the Royal Couple in Russia
were being gradually isolated. Calumnies almost as evil and quite as
baseless against the Tsarina as those published about Marie
Antoinette were freely circulated. To review here this campaign of
malice is not necessary. There were no chivalrous swords ready to
leap from the scabbards for her. The age of chivalry seemed indeed
dead. The poor lady was not even picturesque, whereas her brilliant
mother-in-law, Dagmar of Denmark, was still beautiful and
picturesque; she was imperial, but then she understood what democracy
meant. It is said that she believed that, if her son had appeared in
his uniform on horseback, surrounded by a staff of men who
represented traditions, the revolution would not have begun. Neither
the Tsar not the Tsarina understood what tradition meant to the
Russian mind. The empress was a German at heart,--an overfond and
superstitious mother. Good women have never made successful rulers,
as a rather cynical Russian said to me, _à propos_ of the Empress
Catherine. The nobility disliked her because she kept aloof from
them. The glitter and the pomp of court life which the Russian
aristocracy loved, the consideration which monarchs are expected to
show for the social predilections of their subjects were disregarded
by her. Living in perpetual fear, her nerves were shattered. All her
interests centred in her family and in the unbending conviction of a
German princess that the divine right of kings is a dogma. She was as
incapable of understanding that there were powers in the nation which
could destroy as was Marie Antoinette before she met destruction. We
understood at Copenhagen that she looked on all the acts of the
emperor that were not autocratic as weak; members of the Duma must be
subservient and grateful; otherwise, it was the duty of the Tsar to
treat them with the severity they deserved. The concessions, which,
if granted earlier would have saved the emperor, were very
moderate--merely a responsible ministry and a constitution. The Tsar,
under the influence of the empress, the reactionary Protopopoff and
the little clique of exclusives, who had forgotten everything
valuable and learned nothing new, refused to grasp these ropes of
salvation. The strength of the Grand Duke Nicholas-Michailovitch
amazed and disconcerted this clique. 'If,' said one of the elderly
Russian gentlemen we knew, 'he is not exiled, he will try to be
President of all the Russias one day!' The emperess dowager was
distrusted by the party around the empress. The empress dowager
believed in prosecuting the war, for she knew that Russia could only
follow her destiny happily freed from German control.
From February until March, 1917, Russia continued to be the one
subject of discussion in diplomatic circles. It was the general
opinion that the empress was the great obstacle to the emperor's
giving a liberal constitution to his people. The Danish court, though
the Emperor William had accused it of indiscretion, was silent.
Prince Valdemar, who was, like all the sons and daughters of King
Christian IX., devoted to the dowager empress, was plainly uneasy. We
all knew that his sympathies were with the Liberal Party and against
the pro-German and absolutist clique. 'The Russian people have
endured much,' he said on March 10th, the day on which the news of
the Tsar's abdication arrived; and, afterwards,--'Thank God--so far
it has been almost a bloodless Revolution.'
'Why,' asked the devout Danish Conservative, who believed that kings
were still all-powerful, 'why does not King George of England help
his cousin?'
It was only too plain that in spite of all warnings, 'his cousin' had
put himself beyond all human help.
The Russian soldiers calmly doffed their caps and said 'I will go
home for my part of the land!' The condition of Petrograd was such
that chaos had come again. To save the lives of the Tsar and Tsarina,
Kerensky insisted that capital punishment should be abolished. Count
Christian Holstein-Ledreborg, fresh from Russia, reported that at the
soldiers' meeting in the banquet room of the Winter Palace, speakers
imposed silence by shooting at the ceiling! There was an attempt on
the part of the new democrats to have prostitution, hitherto the
luxury of the rich, put within the reach of all.
Russia had gone out of the war; it was surely time for us to go in.
On April 7, 1917, I informed the Foreign Office that the President at
Congress had declared us in a state of war with Germany. Further
patience would have been a crime.
From that day the Legation took on a new aspect. Our decks were
cleared for observation and action. Mr. Cleveland Perkins, who had
courageously assumed the duties of the Secretary of Legation although
relieved by a secretary, had new and difficult duties thrust upon
him, to which he was fully equal. Mr. Seymour Beach Conger and Mr.
John Covington Knapp were invaluable. No words of mine can express my
sense of their self-sacrificing patriotism. Mr. Groeninger did three
men's work and Captain Totten kept us all up to the mark by his
fiery and persistent enthusiasm. No great dinners now! Even if we had
been in the mood, fire and food had become too scarce. Mr. Conger did
a most important service; he looked after the crowds of late comers
from Germany, and discovered what light they could throw on German
conditions. The State Department came to the rescue of our staff,
which was few but fit; Mr. Grant-Smith was sent from Washington, with
instructions to spend all the money that was necessary. He made a
complete organisation, and I, struck heavily in health, laid down my
task regretfully, leaving it in hands more competent under the
changed circumstances.
There is no use in hiding the fact that, even before Russia broke, we
who feared the triumph of Germany had many dark days; but there was
never a time when my colleagues of the Allies despaired. How Mr.
Allart, our Belgian colleague, lived through it, I do not know! The
Danes stood by him manfully, and he never lacked the sympathy of his
colleagues; but he suffered.
'The moment that England is seriously inconvenienced,' a German
Professor of Psychology had said, 'she will give in.' We know how
false this was. The race, pronounced degenerate, whose fibre was
supposed to be eaten up with an inordinate love of sport, showed
bravery to the backbone when it awakened to the real issues of the
war. The upper classes of the English were splendid beyond words.
Their sacrifices were terrible in the beginning, but their example
told; and long before the crash of Russia came, there was no question
of 'business as usual.' The British nation had realised that it was
fighting, not only for its life, but for the principle on which its
life is based. Yet the victory was by no means sure. 'The Empire may
go down under the assaults of the Huns--let it go rather than that
we should make a single compromise,' said Sir Ralph Paget. Mr.
Gurney, Colonel Wade, and all the staunch men connected with his
Legation, echoed his words.
Mr. Wells, the novelist preacher, may say what he will of the failure
of English education, but it has produced men of a quality which all
the men can understand and admire.[18] As to the French, they, too,
had their sober hours, and the saddest was caused, perhaps, by the
dread that we had forgotten what the war was for; such soldiers as
they were!--Captain de Courcel and Baron Taylor, suffering from
wounds, and yet counting every hour with pain that kept them from
their duty. But we came in none too soon; from my point of view, it
is unreasonable to believe that the apparent disintegration of
Germany and Austria was the cause of our victory. The cause of it was
the increase of man power on the Western Front. In Copenhagen, our
best military experts said, 'If the United States can be ready in
time to supply the losses of the French and English; if your aviators
can get to work, victory is assured.' These experts feared that we
would be too slow, and there were dark, very dark, days in 1916 and
1917.
[18] Of all the many young men I knew in England and Ireland, most
of them the sons or grandsons of old friends, there are only three
alive; two of them, the sons of Mr. Thomas P. Gill, of the Irish
Technical and Agricultural Board, have been made invalids in the
war.
President Wilson's ideals were, in the beginning, looked on as
doctrinaire--breezes from the groves of the Academies. Some of the
elders and scribes of Europe, adept in the methods that nullified the
good intentions of the Hague conferences, looked on his explanation
of the aims of the conflict as the courtiers of Louis XIV. might have
contemplated the pages of Chateaubriand's _Genius of Christianity_,
if Chateaubriand had lived at Port Royal in the time of those cynics;
but the people in all the Scandinavian countries took to them as the
expression of their aspirations. The chancelleries of Europe heard a
new voice with a new note, but the people did not find it new.
President Wilson found himself, when he gave the reasons of our
country for entering the war, interpreting the meaning of the people.
Until he spoke the war seemed to mean the saving of the territory of
one nation, or the regaining it for another, or the existence of a
nation's life. Standing out of the European miasma, with nothing to
gain except the fulfilment of our ideals, and all to lose if there
were to be losses of life and material, we gave a meaning to the
war,--a new meaning which had been obscured.
Nevertheless, let us not forget that Germany has not changed her
ideals; all the forces of the civilised world have not succeeded in
changing them. Of democracy, in the American sense of the word, she
has no more understanding than Russia--nor at present does she really
want to have.
To a certain extent she conquered us. She obliged us to adopt her
methods of warfare; to imitate her system of espionage; to
co-ordinate, for the moment at least, all the functions of national
life under a system as centralised as her own. If she gave temperance
to Russia, an army to England, religion to France, she almost
succeeded in depriving our Western hemisphere of its faith in God.
Her efficiency was so expensive that it was making her bankrupt; she
was paying too much for her perfection of method. To justify it in
the eyes of her own people she went to war. France was to pay her
debts and Russia to be the way of an inexpensive road to the East.
Her methods in peace cost her too much; a short war would save her
credit. To our regret, perhaps remorse, we have been forced by her to
fight her Devil with his own fire; and now we hope for a process of
reconstruction in this great and populous country based on our own
ideals; but we cannot change the aspirations or the hearts of the
Germans. We can only take care that they keep the laws made by
nations who have well-directed consciences,--this lesson I have
learned near to their border.
THE END
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