DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES
_To Edward M. House_
June 30, 1915.
MY DEAR HOUSE:
There's a distinct wave of depression here--perhaps I'd better say
a period of setbacks has come. So far as we can find out only the
Germans are doing anything in the war on land. The position in
France is essentially the same as it was in November, only the
Germans are much more strongly entrenched. Their great plenty of
machine guns enables them to use fewer men and to kill more than
the Allies. The Russians also lack ammunition and are yielding more
and more territory. The Allies--so you hear now--will do well if
they get their little army away from the Dardanelles before the
German-Turks eat 'em alive, and no Balkan state comes in to help
the Allies. Italy makes progress-slowly, of course, over almost
impassable mountains--etc., etc. Most of this doleful recital I
think is true; and I find more and more men here who have lost hope
of seeing an end of the war in less than two or three years, and
more and more who fear that the Germans will never be forced out of
Belgium. And the era of the giant aeroplane seems about to come--a
machine that can carry several tons and several men and go great
distances--two engines, two propellers, and the like. It isn't at
all impossible, I am told, that these machines may be the things
that will at last end the war--possibly, but I doubt it.
At any rate, it is true that a great wave of discouragement is
come. All these events and more seem to prove to my mind the rather
dismal failure the Liberal Government made--a failure really to
grasp the problem. It was a dead failure. Of course they are waking
up now, when they are faced with a certain dread lest many soldiers
prefer frankly to die rather than spend another winter in
practically the same trenches. You hear rumours, too, of great
impending military scandals--God knows whether there be any truth
in them or not.
In a word, while no Englishman gives up or will ever give
up--that's all rot--the job he has in hand is not going well. He's
got to spit on his hands and buckle up his belt two holes tighter
yet. And I haven't seen a man for a month who dares hope for an end
of the fight within any time that he can foresee.
I had a talk to-day with the Russian Ambassador[16]. He wished to
know how matters stood between the United States and Great Britain.
I said to him: "I'll give you a task if you have leisure. Set to
and help me hurry up your distinguished Ally in dealing with our
shipping troubles."
The old man laughed--that seemed a huge joke to him; he threw up
his hands and exclaimed--"My God! He is slow about his own
business--has always been slow--can't be anything else."
After more such banter, the nigger in his wood-pile poked his head
out: "Is there any danger," he asked, "that munitions may be
stopped?"
The Germans have been preparing northern France for German
occupation. No French are left there, of course, except women and
children and old men. They must be fed or starved or deported. The
Germans put them on trains--a whole village at a time--and run
them to the Swiss frontier. Of course the Swiss pass them on into
France. The French have their own and--the Germans will have
northern France without any French population, if this process goes
on long enough.
The mere bang! bang! frightful era of the war is passed. The
Germans are settling down to permanent business with their great
organizing machine. Of course they talk about the freedom of the
seas and such mush-mush; of course they'd like to have Paris and
rob it of enough money to pay what the war has cost them, and
London, too. But what they really want for keeps is
seacoast--Belgium and as much of the French coast as they can win.
That's really what they are out gunning for. Of course, somehow at
some time they mean to get Holland, too, and Denmark, if they
really need it. Then they'll have a very respectable seacoast--the
thing that they chiefly lack now.
More and more people are getting their nerves knocked out. I went
to a big hospital on Sunday, twenty-five miles out of London. They
showed me an enormous, muscular Tommy sitting by himself in a chair
under the trees. He had had a slight wound which quickly got well.
But his speech was gone. That came back, too, later. But then he
wouldn't talk and he'd insist on going off by himself. He's just
knocked out--you can't find out just how much gumption he has left.
That's what the war did for him: it stupefied him. Well, it's
stupefied lots of folks who have never seen a trench. That's what's
happened. Of all the men who started in with the game, I verily
believe that Lloyd George is holding up best. He organized British
finance. Now he's organizing British industry.
It's got hot in London--hotter than I've ever known it. It gets
lonelier (more people going away) and sadder--more wounded coming
back and more visible sorrow. We seem to be settling down to
something that is more or less like Paris--so far less, but it may
become more and more like it. And the confident note of an earlier
period is accompanied by a dull undertone of much less
cheerfulness. The end is--in the lap of the gods.
W.H.P.
_To Arthur W. Page_
American Embassy, London,
July 25, 1915.
DEAR ARTHUR:
... Many men here are very active in their thought about the future
relations of the United States and Great Britain. Will the war
bring or leave them closer together? If the German machine be
completely smashed (and it may not be completely smashed) the
Japanese danger will remain. I do not know how to estimate that
danger accurately. But there is such a danger. And, if the German
wild beast ever come to life again, there's an eternal chance of
trouble with it. For defensive purposes it may become of the very
first importance that the whole English-speaking world should stand
together--not in entangling alliance, but with a much clearer
understanding than we have ever yet had. I'll indicate to you some
of my cogitations on this subject by trying to repeat what I told
Philip Kerr[17] a fortnight ago--one Sunday in the country. I can
write this to you without seeming to parade my own opinions.--Kerr
is one of "The Round Table," perhaps the best group of men here for
the real study and free discussion of large political subjects.
Their quarterly, _The Round Table_, is the best review, I dare
say, in the world. Kerr is red hot for a close and perfect
understanding between Great Britain and the United States. I told
him that, since Great Britain had only about forty per cent. of the
white English-speaking people and the United States had about sixty
per cent., I hoped in his natural history that the tail didn't wag
the dog. I went on:
"You now have the advantage of us in your aggregation of three
centuries of accumulated wealth--the spoil of all the world--and in
the talent that you have developed for conserving it and adding to
it and in the institutions you have built up to perpetuate it--your
merchant ships, your insurance, your world-wide banking, your
mortgages on all new lands; but isn't this the only advantage you
have? This advantage will pass. You are now shooting away millions
and millions, and you will have a debt that is bound to burden
industry. On our side, we have a more recently mixed race than
yours; you've begun to inbreed. We have also (and therefore) more
adaptability, a greater keenness of mind in our masses; we are
Old-World men set free--free of classes and traditions and all that
they connote. Your so-called democracy is far behind ours. Your
aristocracy and your privileges necessarily bring a social and
economic burden. Half your people look backward.
"Your leadership rests on your wealth and on the power that you've
built on your wealth."
When he asked me how we were to come closer together--"closer
together, with your old-time distrust of us and with your
remoteness?"--I stopped him at "remoteness."
"That's the reason," I said. "Your idea of our 'remoteness.'
'Remoteness' from what? From you? Are you not betraying the only
real difficulty of a closer sympathy by assuming that you are the
centre of the world? When you bring yourself to think of the
British Empire as a part of the American Union--mind you, I am not
saying that you would be formally admitted--but when you are
yourselves in close enough sympathy with us to wish to be admitted,
the chief difficulty of a real union of thought will be gone. You
recall Lord Rosebery's speech in which he pictured the capital of
the British Empire being moved to Washington if the American
Colonies had been retained under the Crown? Well, it was the Crown
that was the trouble, and the capital of English-speaking folk has
been so moved and you still remain 'remote.' Drop 'remote' from
your vocabulary and your thought and we'll actually be closer
together."
It's an enormous problem--just how to bring these countries closer
together. Perhaps nothing can do it but some great common danger or
some great common adventure. But this is one of the problems of
your lifetime. England can't get itself clean loose from the
continent nor from continental mediævalism; and with that we can
have nothing to do. Men like Kerr think that somehow a great push
toward democracy here will be given by the war. I don't quite see
how. So far the aristocracy have made perhaps the best showing in
defence of English liberty. They are paying the bills of the war;
they have sent their sons; these sons have died like men; and their
parents never whimper. It's a fine breed for such great uses as
these. There was a fine incident in the House of Lords the other
day, which gave the lie to the talk that one used to hear here
about "degeneracy." Somebody made a perfectly innocent proposal to
complete a list of peers and peers' sons who had fallen in the
war--a thing that will, of course, be done, just as a similar list
will be compiled of the House of Commons, of Oxford and Cambridge
Universities. But one peer after another objected vigorously lest
such a list appear immodest. "We are but doing our duty. Let the
matter rest there."
In a time like this the aristocracy proves its worth. In fact, all
aristocracies grew chiefly out of wars, and perhaps they are better
for wars than a real democracy. Here, you see, you run into one of
those contradictions in life and history which make the world so
hard to change....
You know there are some reasons why peace, whenever it may come,
will bring problems as bad as the problems of the war itself. I can
think of no worse task than the long conferences of the Allies with
their conflicting interests and ambitions. Then must come their
conferences with the enemy. Then there are sure to be other
conferences to try to make peace secure. And, of course, many are
going to be dissatisfied and disappointed, and perhaps out of these
disappointments other wars may come. The world will not take up its
knitting and sit quietly by the fire for many a year to come....
Affectionately,
W.H.P.
One happiness came to Mr. and Mrs. Page in the midst of all these war
alarums. On August 4, 1915, their only daughter, Katharine, was married
to Mr. Charles G. Loring, of Boston, Massachusetts. The occasion gave
the King an opportunity of showing the high regard in which Page and his
family were held. It had been planned that the wedding should take place
in Westminster Abbey, but the King very courteously offered Miss Page
the Royal chapel in St. James's Palace. This was a distinguished
compliment, as it was the first time that any marriage, in which both
bride and bridegroom were foreigners, had ever been celebrated in this
building, which for centuries has been the scene of royal weddings. The
special place which his daughter had always held in the Ambassador's
affections is apparent in the many letters that now followed her to her
new home in the United States. The unique use Page made of the initials
of his daughter's name was characteristic.
_To Mrs. Charles G. Loring_
London, September 1, 1915.
MY DEAR K.A. P-TAIN:
Here's a joke on your mother and Frank: We three (and Smith) went
up to Broadway in the car, to stay there a little while and then to
go on into Wales, etc. The hotel is an old curiosity shop; you sit
on Elizabethan chairs by a Queen Anne table, on a drunken floor,
and look at the pewter platters on the wall or do your best to look
at them, for the ancient windows admit hardly any light. "Oh!
lovely," cries Frank; and then he and your mother make out in the
half-darkness a perfectly wonderful copper mug on the mantelpiece;
and you go out and come in the ramshackle door (stooping every
time) after you've felt all about for the rusty old iron latch, and
then you step down two steps (or fall), presently to step up two
more. Well, for dinner we had six kinds of meat and two meat pies
and potatoes and currants! My dinner was a potato. I'm old and
infirm and I have many ailments, but I'm not so bad off as to be
able to live on a potato a day. And since we were having a
vacation, I didn't see the point. So I came home where I have seven
courses for dinner, all good; and Mrs. Leggett took my place in the
car. That carnivorous company went on. They've got to eat six
kinds of meat and two meat pies and--currants! I haven't. Your
mother calls me up on the phone every morning--me, who am living
here in luxury, seven courses at every dinner--and asks anxiously,
"And how _are_ you, dear?" I answer: "Prime, and how are _you_?" We
are all enjoying ourselves, you see, and I don't have to eat six
kinds of meat and two meat pies and--currants! They do; and may
Heaven save 'em and get 'em home safe!
[Illustration: Col. Edward M. House. From a painting by P.A.
Laszlo]
[Illustration: The Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister
of Great Britain, 1908-1916]
It's lovely in London now--fine, shining days and showers at night
and Ranelagh beautiful, and few people here; but I don't deny its
loneliness--somewhat. Yet sleep is good, and easy and long. I have
neither an ocean voyage nor six kinds of meat and two meat pies and
currants. I congratulate myself and write to you and mother.
You'll land to-morrow or next day--good; I congratulate you. Salute
the good land for me and present my respectful compliments to
vegetables that have taste and fruit that is not sour--to the
sunshine, in fact, and to everything that ripens and sweetens in
its glow.
And you're now (when this reaches you) fixing up your home--your
_own_ home, dear Kitty. Bless your dear life, you left a home
here--wasn't it a good and nice one?--left it very lonely for the
man who has loved you twenty-four years and been made happy by your
presence. But he'll love you twenty-five more and on and
on--always. So you haven't lost that--nor can you. And it's very
fit and right that you should build your own nest; that adds
another happy home, you see. And I'm very sure it will be very
happy always. Whatever I can do to make it so, now or ever, you
have only to say. But--your mother took your photograph with her
and got it out of the bag and put it on the bureau as soon as she
went to her room--a photograph taken when you were a little girl.
Hodson[18] came up to see me to-day and with tears of gratitude in
his voice told me of the present that you and Chud had made him. He
is very genuinely pleased. As for the rest, life goes on as usual.
I laugh as I think of all your new aunts and cousins looking you
over and wondering if you'll fit, and then saying to one another as
they go to bed: "She is lovely--isn't she?" I could tell 'em a
thing or two if I had a whack at 'em.
And you'll soon have all your pretty things in place in your pretty
home, and a lot more that I haven't seen. I'll see 'em all before
many years--and you, too! Tell me, did Chud get you a dinner book?
Keep your record of things: you'll enjoy it in later years. And
you'll have a nice time this autumn--your new kinsfolk, your new
friends and old and Boston and Cambridge. If you run across Mr.
Muffin, William Roscoe Thayer, James Ford Rhodes, President
Eliot--these are my particular old friends whose names occur at the
moment.
My love to you and Chud too,
Affectionately,
W.H.P.
The task of being "German Ambassador to Great Britain" was evidently not
without its irritations.
_To Arthur W. Page_
September 15, 1915.
DEAR ARTHUR:
Yesterday was my German day. When the boy came up to my room, I
told him I had some official calls to make. "Therefore get out my
oldest and worst suit." He looked much confused; and when I got up
both my worst and best suits were laid out. Evidently he thought he
must have misunderstood me. I asked your mother if she was ready to
go down to breakfast. "Yes."--"Well, then I'll leave you." She
grunted something and when we both got down she asked: "What _did_
you say to me upstairs?" I replied: "I regard the incident as
closed." She looked a sort of pitying look at me and a minute or
two later asked: "What on earth is the matter with you? Can't you
hear at all?" I replied: "No. Therefore let's talk." She gave it
up, but looked at me again to make sure I was all there.
I stopped at the barber shop, badly needing a shave. The barber got
his brush and razor ready. I said: "Cut my hair." He didn't talk
for a few minutes, evidently engaged in deep thought.
When I got to my office, a case was brought to me of a runaway
American who was caught trying to send news to Germany. "Very
good," said I, "now let it be made evident that it shall appear
therefore that his innocence having been duly established he shall
be shot."
"What, sir?"
"That since it must be evident that his guilt is genuine therefore
see that he be acquitted and then shot."
Laughlin and Bell and Stabler were seen in an earnest conference in
the next room for nearly half an hour.
Shoecraft brought me a letter. "This is the most courteous
complaint about the French passport bureau we have yet had. I
thought you'd like to see this lady's letter. She says she knows
you."
"Do not answer it, then."
He went off and conferred with the others.
Hodson spoke of the dog he sold to Frank. "Yes," said I, "since he
was a very nice dog, therefore he was worthless."
"Sir?"
And he went off after looking back at me in a queer way.
The day went on in that fashion. When I came out to go to lunch,
the stairs down led upward and I found myself, therefore, stepping
out of the roof on to the sidewalk--the house upside down. Smith
looked puzzled. "Home, Sir?"
"No. Go the other way." After he had driven two or three blocks, I
told him to turn again and go the other way--home!
Your mother said almost as soon as I got into the door--"What was
the matter with you this morning?"
"Oh, nothing. You forget that I am the German Ambassador."
Now this whole narrative is a lie. Nothing in it occurred. If it
were otherwise it wouldn't be German.
Affectionately,
W.H.P.
_To Mrs. Charles G. Loring_
London, 6 Grosvenor Square.
Sunday, September 19, 1915.
DEAR KITTY:
You never had a finer autumnal day in the land of the free than
this day has been in this old kingdom--fresh and fair; and so your
mother said to herself and me: "Let's go out to the Laughlins' to
lunch," and we went. There never was a prettier drive. We found out
among other things that you pleased Mrs. Laughlin very much by your
letter. Her garden changes every week or so, and it never was
lovelier than it is now.--Then we came back home and dined alone.
Well, since we can't have you and Chud and Frank, I don't care if
we do dine alone sometimes for some time to come. Your mother's
monstrous good company, and sometimes three is a crowd. And now is
a good time to be alone. London never was so dull or deserted since
I've known it, nor ever so depressed. The military (land)
operations are not cheerful; the hospitals are all full; I see more
wounded soldiers by far than at any previous time; the Zeppelins
came somewhere to this island every night for a week--one of them,
on the night of the big raid, was visible from our square for
fifteen or twenty minutes--in general it is a dull and depressing
time. I have thought that since you were determined to run off with
a young fellow, you chose a pretty good time to go away. I'm afraid
there'll be no more of what we call "fun" in this town as long as
we stay here.
Worse yet: in spite of the Coalition Government and everybody's
wish to get on smoothly and to do nothing but to push the war,
since Parliament convened there's been a great row, which doesn't
get less. The labour men give trouble; people blame the
politicians: Lloyd George is saving the country, say some; Lloyd
George ought to be hanged, say others. Down with Northcliffe! They
seem likely to burn him at the stake--except those who contend that
he has saved the nation. Some maintain that the cabinet is too
big--twenty-two. More say that it has no leadership. If you favour
conscription, you are a traitor: if you don't favour it, you are
pro-German. It's the same sort of old quarrel they had before the
war, only it is about more subjects. In fact, nobody seems very
clearly to know what it's about. Meantime the Government is
spending money at a rate that nobody ever dreamed of before. Three
million pounds a day--some days five million. The Germans,
meantime are taking Russia; the Allies are not taking the
Dardanelles; in France the old deadlock continues. Boston at its
worst must be far more cheerful than this.
Affectionately and with my love to Chud,
W.H.P.
_To the President_
London, September 26, 1915.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
The suppression of facts about the military situation is more
rigorous than ever since the military facts have become so
discouraging. The volume of pretty well authenticated news that I
used to hear privately has become sensibly diminished. Rumours that
reach me by the back door, in all sorts of indirect ways, are not
fewer, but fewer of them are credible. There is great confusion,
great fear, very great depression--far greater, I think, than
England has felt, certainly since the Napoleonic scare and probably
since the threat of the Armada. Nobody, I think, supposes that
England herself will be conquered: confidence in the navy is
supreme. But the fear of a practical defeat of the Allies on the
continent is become general. Russia may have to pay a huge
indemnity, going far to reimburse Germany for the cost of the war;
Belgium may be permanently held unless Germany receive an indemnity
to evacuate, and her seaports may be held anyhow; the Germans may
reach Constantinople before the Allies, and Germany may thus hold,
when the war ends, an open way to the East; and France may have to
pay a large sum to regain her northern territory now held by the
Germans. These are not the convictions of men here, but they have
distinctly become the fears; and many men's mind are beginning to
adjust themselves to the possible end of the war, as a draw, with
these results. Of course such an end would be a real German
victory and--another war as soon as enough men grow up to fight it.
When the more cheerful part of public opinion, especially when any
member of the Government, affects to laugh at these fears, the
people say: "Well, make known the facts that you base your hope on.
Precisely how many men have volunteered? Is the voluntary system a
success or has it reached its limit? Precisely what is the
situation in the Dardanelles? Are the allied armies strong enough
to make a big drive to break through the German line in France?
Have they big guns and ammunition enough? What are the facts about
the chance in the Dardanelles? What have we done with reference to
the Balkan States?" Thus an angry and ominous political situation
is arising. The censorship on war news apparently becomes severer,
and the general fear spreads and deepens. The air, of course,
becomes heavily charged with such rumours as these: that if the
Government continue its policy of secrecy, Lloyd George will
resign, seeing no hope of a real victory: that, if he do resign,
his resignation will disrupt the Government--cause a sort of
earthquake; that the Government will probably fall and Lloyd George
will be asked to form another one, since he is, as the public sees
it, the most active and efficient man in political life; that, if
all the Balkan States fail the Allies, Sir Edward Grey will be
reckoned a failure and must resign; and you even now hear talk of
Mr. Balfour's succeeding him.
It is impossible to say what basis there is for these and other
such rumours, but they show the general very serious depression and
dissatisfaction. Of that there is no doubt. Nor is there any doubt
about grave differences in the Cabinet about conscription nor of
grave fear in the public mind about the action of labour unions in
hindering the utmost production of ammunition, nor of the
increasing feeling that the Prime Minister doesn't lead the nation.
Except Lloyd George and the Chancellor of the Exchequer[19] the
Cabinet seems to suffer a sort of paralysis. Lord Kitchener's
speech in the House of Lords, explaining the military situation,
reads like a series of month-old bulletins and was a great
disappointment. Mr. Asquith's corresponding speech in the House
seemed to lack complete frankness. The nation feels that it is
being kept in the dark, and all the military information that it
gets is discouraging. Sir Edward Grey, as philosophic and enduring
a man as I know, seems much more depressed than I have ever known
him to be; Bryce is very very far from cheerful; Plunkett[20], whom
also you know, is in the dumps--it's hard to find a cheerful or a
hopeful man.
The secrecy of official life has become so great and successful
that prophecy of political changes must be mere guess work. But,
unless good news come from the Dardanelles in particular, I have a
feeling that Asquith may resign--be forced out by the gradual
pressure of public opinion; that Lloyd George will become Prime
Minister, and that (probably) Sir Edward Grey may resign. Yet I
cannot take the prevailing military discouragement at its face
value. The last half million men and the last million pounds will
decide the contest, and the Allies will have these. This very
depression strengthens the nation's resolution to a degree that
they for the moment forget. The blockade and the armies in the
field will wear Germany down--not absolutely conquer her, but wear
her down--probably in another year.
In the meantime our prestige (if that be the right word), in
British judgment, is gone. As they regard it, we have permitted
the Germans to kill our citizens, to carry on a world-wide underhand
propaganda from our country (as well as in it), for which they have
made no apology and no reparation but only vague assurances for the
future now that their submarine fleet has been almost destroyed.
They think that we are credulous to the point of simplicity to
accept any assurances that Bernstorff may give--in a word, that the
peace-at-any-price sentiment so dominates American opinion and the
American Government that we will submit to any indignity or
insult--that we will learn the Germans' real character when it is
too late to save our honour or dignity. There is no doubt of the
definiteness or depth of this opinion.
And I am afraid that this feeling will show itself in our future
dealings with this government. The public opinion of the nation as
well as the Government accepts their blockade as justified as well
as necessary. They will not yield on that point, and they will
regard our protests as really inspired by German influence--thus
far at least: that the German propaganda has organized and
encouraged the commercial objection in the United States, and that
this propaganda and the peace-at-any-price sentiment demand a stiff
controversy with England to offset the stiff controversy with
Germany; and, after all, they ask, what does a stiff controversy
with the United States amount to? I had no idea that English
opinion could so quickly become practically indifferent as to what
the United States thinks or does. And as nearly as I can make it
out, there is not a general wish that we should go to war. The
prevalent feeling is not a selfish wish for military help. In fact
they think that, by the making of munitions, by the taking of
loans, and by the sale of food we can help them more than by
military and naval action. Their feeling is based on their
disappointment at our submitting to what they regard as German
dallying with us and to German insults. They believe that, if we
had sent Bernstorff home when his government made its
unsatisfactory reply to our first _Lusitania_ note, Germany would
at once have "come down"; opportunist Balkan States would have come
to the help of the Allies; Holland and perhaps the Scandinavian
States would have got some consideration at Berlin for their losses
by torpedoes; that more attention would have been paid by Turkey to
our protest against the wholesale massacre of the Armenians; and
that a better settlement with Japan about Pacific islands and
Pacific influence would have been possible for the English at the
end of the war. Since, they argue, nobody is now afraid of the
United States, her moral influence is impaired at every capital;
and I now frequently hear the opinion that, if the war lasts
another year and the Germans get less and less use of the United
States as a base of general propaganda in all neutral countries,
especially all American countries, they are likely themselves to
declare war on us as a mere defiance of the whole world and with
the hope of stirring up internal trouble for our government by the
activity of the Germans and the Irish in the United States, which
may hinder munitions and food and loans to the Allies.
I need not remark that the English judgment of the Germans is
hardly judicial. But they reply to this that every nation has to
learn the real, incredible character of the Prussian by its own
unhappy experience. France had so to learn it, and England, Russia,
and Belgium; and we (the United States), they say, fail to profit
in time by the experience of these. After the Germans have used us
to the utmost in peace, they will force us into war--or even flatly
declare war on us when they think they can thus cause more
embarrassment to the Allies, and when they conclude that the time
is come to make sure that no great nation shall emerge from the war
with a clear commercial advantage over the others; and in the
meantime they will prove to the world by playing with us that a
democracy is necessarily pacific and hence (in their view)
contemptible. I felt warranted the other day to remark to Lord
Bryce on the unfairness of much of the English judgment of us (he
is very sad and a good deal depressed). "Yes," he said, "I have
despaired of one people's ever really understanding another even
when the two are as closely related and as friendly as the
Americans and the English."
You were kind enough to inquire about my health in your last note.
If I could live up to the popular conception here of my labours and
responsibilities and delicate duties (which is most flattering and
greatly exaggerated), I should be only a walking shadow of a man.
But I am most inappreciately well. I imagine that in some year to
come, I may enjoy a vacation, but I could not enjoy it now. Besides
since civilization has gone backward several centuries, I suppose
I've gone back with it to a time when men knew no such thing as a
vacation. (Let's forgive House for his kindly, mistaken
solicitude.) The truth is, I often feel that I do not know
myself--body or soul, boots or breeches. This experience is making
us all here different from the men we were--but in just what
respects it is hard to tell. We are not within hearing of the guns
(except the guns that shoot at Zeppelins when they come); but the
war crowds itself in on us sensibly more and more. There are more
wounded soldiers on the streets and in the parks. More and more
families one knows lose their sons, more and more women their
husbands. Death is so common that it seems a little thing. Four
persons have come to my house to-day (Sunday) in the hope that I
may find their missing kinsmen, and two more have appealed to me on
the telephone and two more still have sent me notes. Since I began
this letter, Mrs. Page insisted on my going out on the edge of the
city to see an old friend of many years who has just lost both his
sons and whose prospective son-in-law is at home wounded. The first
thing he said was: "Tell me, what is America going to do?" As we
drove back, we made a call on a household whose nephew is
"missing."--"Can't you possibly help us hear definitely about him?"
This sort of thing all day every day must have some effect on any
man. Then--yesterday morning gave promise of a calm, clear day. I
never know what sensational experience awaits me around the next
corner. Then there was put on my desk the first page of a reputable
weekly paper which was filled with an open letter to me written by
the editor and signed. After the usual description of my
multitudinous and delicate duties, I was called on to insist that
my government should protest against Zeppelin raids on London
because a bomb might kill me! Humour doesn't bubble much now on
this side the world, for the censor had forbidden the publication
of this open letter lest it should possibly cause American-German
trouble! Then the American correspondents came in to verify a
report that a news agency is said to have had that I was deluged
with threatening letters!--More widows, more mothers looking for
lost sons!... Once in a while--far less often than if I lived in a
sane and normal world--I get a few hours off and go to a lonely
golf club. Alas! there is seldom anybody there but now and then a
pair of girls and now and then a pair of old fellows who have
played golf for a century. Yet back in London in the War Office I
hear they indulge in disrespectful hilarity at the poor game I
play. Now how do they know? (You'd better look to your score with
Grayson: the English have spies in America. A major-general in
their spy-service department told Mrs. Page that they knew all
about Archibaldi[21] before he got on the ship in New York.)
All this I send you not because it is of the slightest permanent
importance (except the English judgment of us) but because it will
prove, if you need proof, that the world is gone mad. Everything
depends on fighting power and on nothing else. A victory will save
the Government. Even distinctly hopeful military news will. And
English depression will vanish with a turn of the military tide. If
it had been Bernstorff instead of Dumba--_that_ would have affected
even the English judgment of us. Tyrrell[22] remarked to me--did I
write you? "Think of the freaks of sheer, blind Luck; a man of
considerable ability like Dumba caught for taking a risk that an
idiot would have avoided, and a fool like Bernstorff escaping!"
Then he added: "I hope Bernstorff will be left. No other human
being could serve the English as well as he is serving them." So,
you see, even in his depression the Englishman has some humour
left--e.g., when that old sea dog Lord Fisher heard that Mr.
Balfour was to become First Lord of the Admiralty, he cried out:
"Damn it! he won't do: Arthur Balfour is too much of a gentleman."
So John Bull is now, after all, rather pathetic--depressed as he
has not been depressed for at least a hundred years. The nobility
and the common man are doing their whole duty, dying on the
Bosphorus or in France without a murmur, or facing an insurrection
in India; but the labour union man and the commercial class are
holding hack and hindering a victory. And there is no great
national leader.
Sincerely yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 16: Count Beckendorff.]
[Footnote 17: Afterward private secretary to Premier Lloyd George.]
[Footnote 18: A messenger in the American Embassy.]
[Footnote 19: The Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna.]
[Footnote 20: Sir Horace Plunkett.]
[Footnote 21: It was Archibald's intercepted baggage that furnished the
documents which caused Dumba's dismissal.]
[Footnote 22: Sir William Tyrrell, private secretary to Sir Edward
Grey.]