GETTING THE AMERICAN TROOPS TO FRANCE
A group of letters, written at this time, touch upon a variety of topics
which were then engaging the interest of all countries:
_To Arthur W. Page_
London, January 19, 1918.
DEAR ARTHUR:
While your letter is still fresh in my mind I dictate the following
in answer to your question about Palestine.
It has not been settled--and cannot be, I fancy, until the Peace
Conference--precisely what the British will do with Palestine, but
I have what I think is a correct idea of their general attitude on
the subject. First, of course, they do not propose to allow it to
go back into Turkish hands; and the same can be said also of
Armenia and possibly of Mesopotamia. Their idea of the future of
Palestine is that whoever shall manage the country, or however it
shall be managed, the Jews shall have the same chance as anybody
else. Of course that's quite an advance for the Jews there, but
their idea is not that the Jews should have command of other
populations there or control over them--not in the least. My guess
at the English wish, which I have every reason to believe is the
right guess, is that they would wish to have Palestine
internationalized, whatever that means. That is to say, that it
should have control of its own local affairs and be a free country
but that some great Power, or number of Powers, should see to it
that none of the races that live there should be allowed to impose
upon the other races. I don't know just how such a guarantee can be
given by the great Powers or such a responsibility assumed except
by an agreement among two or three of them, or barely possibly by
the English keeping control themselves; but the control by the
English after the war of the former German colonies will put such a
large task on them that they will not be particularly eager to
extend the area of their responsibility elsewhere. Of course a
difficult problem will come up also about Constantinople and the
Dardanelles. The Dardanelles must be internationalized.
I have never been able to consider the Zionist movement seriously.
It is a mere religious sentiment which will express itself in
action by very few people. I have asked a number of Jews at various
times who are in favour of the Zionist movement if they themselves
are going there. They always say no. The movement, therefore, has
fixed itself in my mind as a Jewish movement in which no Jew that
you can lay your hands on will ever take part but who wants other
Jews to take part in it. Of course there might be a flocking to
Palestine of Jews from Russia and the adjoining countries where
they are not happy, but I think the thing is chiefly a sentiment
and nothing else. Morgenthau[68] is dead right. I agree with him
_in toto_. I do not think anybody in the United States need be the
least concerned about the Zionist movement because there isn't a
single Jew in our country such a fool as to go to Palestine when he
can stay in the United States. The whole thing is a sentimental,
religious, more or less unnatural and fantastic idea and I don't
think will ever trouble so practical a people as we and our Jews
are.
The following memorandum is dated February 10, 1918:
General Bliss[69] has made a profound and the best possible
impression here by his wisdom and his tact. The British have a deep
respect for him and for his opinions, and in inspiring and keeping
high confidence in us he is worth an army in himself. I have seen
much of him and found out a good deal about his methods. He is
simplicity and directness itself. Although he is as active and
energetic as a boy, he spends some time by himself to think things
out and even to say them to himself to see how his conclusions
strike the ear as well as the mind. He has been staying here at the
house of one of our resident officers. At times he goes to his room
and sits long by the fire and argues his point--out loud--oblivious
to everything else. More than once when he was so engaged one of
his officers has knocked at the door and gone in and laid telegrams
on the table beside him and gone out without his having known of
the officer's entrance. Then he comes out and tries his conclusion
on someone who enjoys his confidence. And then he stands by it and
when the time comes delivers it slowly and with precision; and
there he is; and those who hear him see that he has thought the
matter out on all sides and finally.
Our various establishments in London have now become big--the
Embassy proper, the Naval and Army Headquarters, the Red Cross, the
War Trade Board's representatives, and now (forthwith) the Shipping
Board, besides Mr. Crosby of the Treasury. The volume of work is
enormous and it goes smoothly, except for the somewhat halting
Army Headquarters, the high personnel of which is now undergoing a
change; and that will now be all right. I regularly make the rounds
of all the Government Departments with which we deal to learn if
they find our men and methods effective, and the rounds of all our
centres of activity to find whether there be any friction with the
British The whole machine moves very well. For neither side
hesitates to come to me whenever they strike even small snags. All
our people are at work on serious tasks and (so far as I know)
there are now none of those despicable creatures here who used
during our neutrality days to come from the United States on peace
errands and what-not to spy on the Embassy and me (their inquiries
and their correspondence were catalogued by the police). I have
been amazed at the activity of some of them whose doings I have
since been informed of.
We now pay this tribute to the submarines--that we have entered the
period of compulsory rations. There is enough to eat in spite of
the food that has gone to feed the fishes. But no machinery of
distribution to a whole population can be uniformly effective. The
British worker with his hands is a greedy feeder and a sturdy
growler and there will be trouble. But I know no reason to
apprehend serious trouble.
The utter break-up of Russia and the German present occupation of
so much of the Empire as she wants have had a contrary effect on
two sections of opinion here, as I interpret the British mind. On
the undoubtedly enormously dominant section of opinion these events
have only stiffened resolution. They say that Germany now must be
whipped to a finish. Else she will have doubled her empire and will
hold the peoples of her new territory as vassals without regard to
their wishes and the war lord caste will be more firmly seated
than ever before. If her armies be literally whipped she'll have to
submit to the Allies' terms, which will dislodge her from
overlordship over these new unwilling subjects--and she can be
dislodged in no other way. This probably means a long war, now that
after a time she can get raw materials for war later and food from
Rumania and the Ukraine, etc. This will mean a fight in France and
Belgium till a decisive victory is won and the present exultant
German will is broken.
The minority section of public opinion--as I judge a small
minority--has the feeling that such an out-and-out military victory
cannot be won or is not worth the price; and that the enemies of
Germany, allowing her to keep her Eastern accretions, must make the
best terms they can in the East; that there's no use in running the
risk of Italy's defeat and defection before some sort of bargain
could be made about Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, and Serbia. Of course
this plan would leave the German warlordship intact and would bring
no sort of assurance of a prolonged peace. It would, too, leave
European Russia at least to German mercy, and would leave the
Baltic and the Black Seas practically wholly under German
influence. As for the people of Russia, there seems small chance
for them in this second contingency. The only way to save them is
to win a decisive victory.
As matters stand to-day Lord Lansdowne and his friends (how
numerous they are nobody knows) are the loudest spokesmen for such
a peace as can be made. But it is talked much of in Asquith circles
that the time may come when this policy will be led by Mr. Asquith,
in a form somewhat modified from the Lansdowne formula. Mr. Asquith
has up to this time patriotically supported the government and he
himself has said nothing in public which could warrant linking his
name with an early peace-seeking policy. But his friends openly
and incessantly predict that he will, at a favourable moment, take
this cue. I myself can hardly believe it. Political victory in
Great Britain doesn't now lie in that direction.
The dominant section of opinion is much grieved at Russia's
surrender, but they refuse to be discouraged by it. They recall how
Napoleon overran most of Europe, and the French held practically
none of his conquests after his fall.
Such real political danger as exists here--if any exists, of which
I am not quite sure--comes not only now mainly of this split in
public opinion but also and to a greater degree from the personal
enemies of the present government. Lloyd George is kept in power
because he is the most energetic man in sight--by far. Many who
support him do not like him nor trust him-except that nobody doubts
his supreme earnestness to win the war. On all other subjects he
has enemies of old and he makes new ones. His intense and superb
energy has saved him in two notable crises. His dismissal of Sir
William Robertson[70] has been accepted in the interest of greater
unity of military control, but it was a dangerous rapids that he
shot, for he didn't do it tactfully. Yet there's a certain danger
to the present powers in the feeling that some of them are wearing
out. Parliament itself--an old one now--is thought to have gone
stale. Bonar Law is over-worked and tired; Balfour is often said to
be too philosophical and languid; but, when this feeling seems in
danger of taking definite shape, he makes a clearer statement than
anybody else and catches on his feet. The man of new energy, not
yet fagged, is Geddes[71], whose frankness carries conviction.
_To the President_
London, March 17, 1918.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
The rather impatient and unappreciative remarks made by the Prime
Minister before a large meeting of preachers of the "free" churches
about a League of Nations reminds me to write you about the state
of British opinion on that subject. What Lloyd George said to these
preachers is regrettable because it showed a certain impatience of
mind from which he sometimes suffers; but it is only fair to him to
say that his remarks that day did not express a settled opinion.
For on more than one previous occasion he has spoken of the subject
in a wholly different tone--much more appreciatively. On that
particular day he had in mind only the overwhelming necessity to
win the war--other things, _all_ other things must wait. In a way
this is his constant mood--the mood to make everybody feel that the
only present duty is to win the war. He has been accused of almost
every defect in the calendar except of slackness about the war.
Nobody has ever doubted his earnestness nor his energy about
_that_. And the universal confidence in his energy and earnestness
is what keeps him in office. Nobody sees any other man who can push
and inspire as well as he does. It would be a mistake, therefore,
to pay too much heed to any particular utterance of this electrical
creature of moods, on any subject.
Nevertheless, he hasn't thought out the project of a league to
enforce peace further than to see the difficulties. He sees that
such a league might mean, in theory at least, the giving over in
some possible crisis the command of the British Fleet to an officer
of some other nationality. That's unthinkable to any red-blooded
son of these islands. Seeing a theoretical possibility even of
raising such a question, the British mind stops and refuses to go
further--refuses in most cases even to inquire seriously whether
any such contingency is ever likely to come.
The British Grand Fleet, in fact, is a subject that stands alone in
power and value and in difficulties. It classifies itself with
nothing else. Since over and over again it has saved these islands
from invasion when nothing else could have saved them and since
during this war in particular it has saved the world from German
conquest--as every Englishman believes--it lies in their reverence
and their gratitude and their abiding convictions as a necessary
and perpetual shield so long as Great Britain shall endure. If the
Germans are thrashed to a frazzle (and we haven't altogether done
that yet) and we set about putting the world in order, when we come
to discuss Disarmament, the British Fleet will be the most
difficult item in the world to dispose of. It is not only a Fact,
with a great and saving history, it is also a sacred Tradition and
an Article of Faith.
The first reason, therefore, why the British general mind has not
firmly got hold on a league is the instinctive fear that the
formation of any league may in some conceivable way affect the
Grand Fleet. Another reason is the general inability of a somewhat
slow public opinion to take hold on more than one subject at a time
or more than one urgent part of one subject. The One Subject, of
course, is winning the war. Since everything else depends on that,
everything else must wait on that.
The League, therefore, has not taken hold on the public imagination
here as it has in the United States. The large mass of the people
have not thought seriously about it: it has not been strongly and
persistently presented to the mass of the people. There is no
popular or general organization to promote it. There is even, here
and there, condemnation of the idea. The (London) _Morning Post_,
for example, goes out of its way once in a while to show the
wickedness of the idea because, so it argues, it will involve the
sacrifice, more or less, of nationality. But the _Morning Post_ is
impervious to new ideas and is above all things critical in its
activities and very seldom constructive. The typical Tory mind in
general sees no good in the idea. The typical Tory mind is the
insular mind.
On the other hand, the League idea is understood as a necessity and
heartily approved by two powerful sections of public opinion--(1)
the group of public men who have given attention to it, such as
Bryce, Lord Robert Cecil, and the like, and (2) some of the best
and strongest leaders of Labour. There is good reason to hope that
whenever a fight and an agitation is made for a League these two
sections of public opinion will win; but an agitation and a fight
must come. Lord Bryce, in the intervals of his work as chairman of
a committee to make a plan for the reorganization of the House of
Lords, which, he remarked to me the other day, "involves as much
labour as a Government Department," has fits of impatience about
pushing a campaign for a league, and so have a few other men. They
ask me if it be not possible to have good American public speakers
come here--privately, of course, and in no way connected with our
Government nor speaking for it--to explain the American movement
for a League in order to arouse a public sentiment on the subject.
Thus the case stands at present.
Truth and error alike and odd admixtures of them come in waves over
this censored land where one can seldom determine what is true,
before the event, from the newspapers. "News" travels by word of
mouth, and information that one can depend on is got by personal
inquiry from sources that can be trusted.
There is a curious wave of fear just now about what Labour may do,
and the common gossip has it that there is grave danger in the
situation. I can find no basis for such a fear. I have talked with
labour leaders and I have talked with members of the government who
know most about the subject. There is not a satisfactory
situation--there has not been since the war began. There has been a
continuous series of labour "crises," and there have been a good
many embarrassing strikes, all of which have first been hushed up
and settled--at least postponed. One cause of continuous trouble
has been the notion held by the Unions, sometimes right and
sometimes wrong, that the employers were making abnormal profits
and that they were not getting their due share. There have been and
are also other causes of trouble. It was a continuous quarrel even
in peace times. But I can find no especial cause of fear now. Many
of the Unions have had such advances of wages that the Government
has been severely criticized for giving in. Just lately a large
wing of the Labour Party put forth its war aims which--with
relatively unimportant exceptions--coincide with the best
declarations made by the Government's own spokesmen.
Of course, no prudent man would venture to make dogmatic
predictions. There have been times when for brief intervals any one
would have been tempted to fear that these quarrels might cause an
unsatisfactory conclusion of the war. But the undoubted patriotism
of the British workman has every time saved the situation. While a
danger point does lie here, there is no reason to be more fearful
now than at any preceding time when no especial trouble was
brewing. This wave of gossip and fear has no right to sweep over
the country now.
Labour hopes and expects and is preparing to win the next General
Election--whether with good reason or not I cannot guess. But most
men expect it to win the Government at some time--most of them
_after_ the war. I recall that Lord Grey once said to me, before
the war began, that a general political success of the Labour Party
was soon to be expected.
Another wave which, I hear, has swept over Rome as well as London
is a wave of early peace expectation. The British newspapers have
lately been encouraging this by mysterious phrases. Some men here
of good sense and sound judgment think that this is the result of
the so-called German "peace offensive," which makes the present the
most dangerous period of the war.
W.H.P.
_To David F. Houston_[72]
London, March 23, 1918.
MY DEAR HOUSTON:
It is very kind of you indeed to write so generously about the
British visitors who are invading our sacred premises, such as the
Archbishop of York, and it is good to hear from you anyhow about
any subject and I needn't say that it is quite a rare experience
also. I wish you would take a little of your abundant leisure and
devote it to good letters to me.
And in some one of your letters tell me this.--The British send
over men of this class that you have written about to see us, but
they invite over here--and we permit to come--cranks on
prohibition, experts in the investigation of crime, short-haired
women who wish to see how British babies are reared, peace cranks
and freaks of other kinds[73]. Our Government apparently won't let
plain, honest, normal civilians come over, but if a fellow comes
along who wants to investigate some monstrosity then one half of
the Senate, one half of the House of Representatives, and a number
of the executive offices of the Government give him the most
cordial letters. Now there are many things, of course, that I don't
know, but it has been my fate to have a pretty extensive
acquaintance with cranks of every description in the United States.
I don't think there is any breed of them that didn't haunt my
office while I was an editor. Now I am surely punished for all my
past sins by having those fellows descend on me here. I know them,
nearly all, from past experience and now just for the sake of
keeping the world as quiet as possible I have to give them time
here far out of proportion to their value.
Now, out of your great wisdom, I wish you would explain to me why
the deuce we let all this crew come over here instead of sending a
shipload of perfectly normal, dignified, and right-minded
gentlemen. These thug reformers!--Baker will be here in a day or
two and if I can remember it I am going to suggest to him that he
round them all up and put them in the trenches in France where
those of them who have so far escaped the gallows ought to be put.
I am much obliged to have the illuminating statement about our
crops. I am going to show it to certain gentlemen here who will be
much cheered by it. By gracious, you ought to hear their
appreciation of what we are doing! We are not doing it for the sake
of their appreciation, but if we were out to win it we could not do
it better. Down at bottom the Englishman is a good fellow. He has
his faults but he doesn't get tired and he doesn't suffer spasms of
emotion.
Give my love to Mrs. Houston, and do sit down and write me a
good long letter--a whole series of them, in fact.
Believe me, always most heartily yours,
WALTER HINES PAGE.
[Illustration: From a painting by Irving R. Wiles Admiral William Sowden
Sims, Commander of American naval forces operating in European waters
during the Great War]
[Illustration: A silver model of the _Mayflower_, the farewell gift of
the Plymouth Council to Mr. Page]
_To Frank L. Polk_
London, March 22, 1918.
DEAR MR. POLK:
You are good enough to mention the fact that the Embassy has some
sort of grievance against the Department. Of course it has, and you
are, possibly, the only man that can remove it. It is this: You
don't come here to see the war and this government and these people
who are again saving the world as we are now saving them. I thank
Heaven and the Administration for Secretary Baker's visit. It is a
dramatic moment in the history of the race, of democracy, and of
the world. The State Department has the duty to deal with foreign
affairs--the especial duty--and yet no man in the State Department
has been here since the war began. This doesn't look pretty and it
won't look pretty when the much over-worked "future historian"
writes it down in a book. Remove that grievance.
The most interesting thing going on in the world to-day--a thing
that in History will transcend the war and be reckoned its greatest
gain--is the high leadership of the President in formulating the
struggle, in putting its aims high, and in taking the democratic
lead in the world, a lead that will make the world over--and in
taking the democratic lead of the English-speaking folk. Next most
impressive to that is to watch the British response to that lead.
Already they have doubled the number of their voters, and even more
important definite steps in Democracy will be taken. My aim--and
it's the only way to save the world--is to lead the British in this
direction. They are the most easily teachable people in our way of
thinking and of doing. Of course everybody who works toward such an
aim provokes the cry from a lot of fools among us who accuse him of
toadying to the English and of "accepting the conventional English
conclusion." They had as well talk of missionaries to India
accepting Confucius or Buddha. Their fleet has saved us four or
five times. It's about time we were saving them from this bloods
Thing that we call Europe, for our sake and for theirs.
The bloody Thing will get us all if we don't fight our level best;
and it's only by _our_ help that we'll be saved. That clearly gives
us the leadership. Everybody sees that. Everybody acknowledges it.
The President authoritatively speaks it--speaks leadership on a
higher level than it was ever spoken before to the whole world. As
soon as we get this fighting job over, the world procession toward
freedom--our kind of freedom--will begin under our lead. This being
so, can't you delegate the writing of telegrams about "facilitating
the license to ship poppy seed to McKesson and Robbins," and come
over and see big world-forces at work?
I cannot express my satisfaction at Secretary Baker's visit. It was
historic--the first member of the Cabinet, I think, who ever came
here while he held office. He made a great impression and received
a hearty welcome.
That's the only grievance I can at the moment unload on you. We're
passing out of our old era of isolation. These benighted heathen on
this island whom we'll yet save (since they are well worth saving)
will be with us as we need them in future years and centuries.
Come, help us heighten this fine spirit.
Always heartily yours,
WALTER HINES PAGE.
P.S. You'd see how big our country looks from a distance. It's
gigantic, I assure you.
The above letter was written on what was perhaps the darkest day of the
whole war. The German attack on the Western Front, which had been long
expected, had now been launched, and, at the moment that Page was
penning this cheery note to Mr. Polk, the German armies had broken
through the British defenses, had pushed their lines forty miles ahead,
and, in the judgment of many military men, had Paris almost certainly
within their grasp. A great German gun, placed about seventy miles from
the French capital, was dropping shells upon the apparently doomed city.
This attack had been regarded as inevitable since the collapse of
Russia, which had enabled the Germans to concentrate practically all
their armies on the Western Front.
The world does not yet fully comprehend the devastating effect of this
apparently successful attack upon the allied morale. British statesmen
and British soldiers made no attempt to conceal from official Americans
the desperate state of affairs. It was the expectation that the Germans
might reach Calais and thence invade England. The War Office discussed
these probabilities most freely with Colonel Slocum, the American
military attaché. The simple fact was that both the French and the
British armies were practically bled white.
"For God's sake, get your men over!" they urged General Slocum. "You
have got to finish it."
Page was writing urgently to President Wilson to the same purpose. Send
the men and send them at once. "I pray God," were his solemn words to
Mr. Wilson, "that you will not be too late!"
One propitious event had taken place at the same time as the opening of
the great German offensive. Mr. Newton D. Baker, the American Secretary
of War, had left quietly for France in late February, 1918, and had
reached the Western Front in time to obtain a first-hand sight of the
great March drive. No visit in history has ever been better timed, and
no event could have better played into Page's hands. He had been urging
Washington to send all available forces to France at the earliest
possible date; he knew, as probably few other men knew, the extent to
which the Allies were depending upon American troops to give the final
blow to Germany; and the arrival of Secretary Baker at the scene of
action gave him the opportunity to make a personal appeal. Page
immediately communicated with the Secretary and persuaded him to come at
once to London for a consultation with British military and political
leaders. The Secretary spent only three days in London, but the visit,
brief as it was, had historic consequences. He had many consultations
with the British military men; he entered into their plans with
enthusiasm; he himself received many ideas that afterward took shape in
action, and the British Government obtained from him first-hand
information as to the progress of the American Army and the American
determination to cooperate to the last man and the last dollar. "Baker
went straight back to France," Page wrote to his son Arthur, "and our
whole coöperation began."
Page gave a dinner to Mr. Baker at the Embassy on March 23rd--two days
after the great March drive had begun. This occasion gave the visitor a
memorable glimpse of the British temperament. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr.
Balfour, Lord Derby, the War Secretary, General Biddle, of the United
States Army, and Admiral Sims were the Ambassador's guests. Though the
mighty issues then overhanging the world were not ignored in the
conversation the atmosphere hardly suggested that the existence of the
British Empire, indeed that of civilization itself, was that very night
hanging in the balance. Possibly it was the general sombreness of events
that caused these British statesmen to find a certain relief in jocular
small talk and reminiscence. For the larger part of the evening not a
word was said about the progress of the German armies in France. Mr.
Lloyd George and Mr. Balfour, seated on opposite sides of the table,
apparently found relaxation in reviewing their political careers and
especially their old-time political battles. They would laughingly
recall occasions when, in American parlance, they had put each other "in
a hole"; the exigencies of war had now made these two men colleagues in
the same government, but the twenty years preceding 1914 they had spent
in political antagonism. Page's guests on this occasion learned much
political history of the early twentieth century, and the mutual
confessions of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Balfour gave these two men an
insight into each others' motives and manoeuvres which was almost as
revealing. "Yes, you caught me that time," Mr. Lloyd George would say,
and then he would counter with an episode of a political battle in which
he had got the better of Mr. Balfour. The whole talk was lively and
bantering, and accompanied with much laughter; and all this time shells
from that long-distance gun were dropping at fifteen minute intervals
upon the devoted women and children of Paris and the Germans were every
hour driving the British back in disorder. At times the conversation
took a more philosophic turn. Would the men present like to go back
twenty-five years and live their lives all over again? The practically
unanimous decision of every man was that he would not wish to do so.
All this, of course, was merely on the surface; despite the laughter and
the banter, there was only one thing which engrossed the Ambassador's
guests, although there were not many references to it. That was the
struggle which was then taking place in France. At intervals Mr. Lloyd
George would send one of the guests, evidently a secretary, from the
room. The latter, on his return, would whisper something in the Prime
Minister's ear, but more frequently he would merely shake his head.
Evidently he had been sent to obtain the latest news of the battle.
At one point the Prime Minister did refer to the great things taking
place in France.
"This battle means one thing," he said. "That is a generalissimo."
"Why couldn't you have taken this step long ago?" Admiral Sims asked Mr.
Lloyd George.
The answer came like a flash.
"If the cabinet two weeks ago had suggested placing the British Army
under a foreign general, it would have fallen. Every cabinet in Europe
would also have fallen, had it suggested such a thing."
_Memorandum on Secretary Baker's visit_
Secretary Baker's visit here, brief as it was, gave the heartiest
satisfaction. So far as I know, he is the first member of an
American Cabinet who ever came to England while he held office, as
Mr. Balfour was the first member of a British Cabinet who ever went
to the United States while he held office. The great governments of
the English-speaking folk have surely dealt with one another with
mighty elongated tongs. Governments of democracies are not exactly
instruments of precision. But they are at least human. But personal
and human neglect of one another by these two governments over so
long a period is an astonishing fact in our history. The wonder is
that we haven't had more than two wars. And it is no wonder that
the ignorance of Englishmen about America and the American
ignorance of England are monumental, stupendous, amazing, passing
understanding. I have on my mantelpiece a statuette of Benjamin
Franklin, an excellent and unmistakable likeness which was made
here during his lifetime; and the inscription burnt on its base is
_Geo. Washington_. It serves me many a good turn with my English
friends. I use it as a measure of their ignorance of us. Of course
this is a mere little error of a statuette-maker, an error,
moreover, of a hundred years ago. But it tells the story of to-day
also. If I had to name the largest and most indelible impression
that has been made on me during my five years' work here, I should
say the ignorance and aloofness of the two peoples--not an
ignorance of big essential facts but of personalities and
temperaments--such as never occur except between men who had never
seen one another.
But I was writing about Mr. Baker's visit and I've got a long way
from that. I doubt if he knows himself what gratification it gave;
for these men here have spoken to me about it as they could not
speak to him.
Here is an odd fact: For sixty years, so far as I know, members of
the Administration have had personal acquaintance with some of the
men in power in Salvador, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Peru, etc., etc.,
and members of the British Government have had personal
acquaintance with some men in authority in Portugal, Serbia,
Montenegro and Monte Carlo; but during this time (with the single
exception of John Hay) I think no member of any Administration had
a real personal acquaintance while he held office with any member
of the British Government while he held office, and vice
versa--till Mr. Balfour's visit. Suspicion grows out of ignorance.
The longer I live here the more astonished I become at the
fundamental ignorance of the British about us and of our
fundamental ignorance about them. So colossal is this ignorance
that every American sent here is supposed to be taken in, to become
Anglophile; and often when one undertakes to enlighten Englishmen
about the United States one becomes aware of a feeling inside the
English of unbelief, as if he said, "Oh, well! you are one of those
queer people who believe in republican government." All this is
simply amazing. Poor Admiral Sims sometimes has a sort of mania, a
delusion that nobody at Washington trusts his judgment because he
said seven or eight years ago that he liked the English. Yet every
naval officer who comes here, I understand, shares his views about
practically every important naval problem or question. I don't
deserve the compliment (it's a very high one) that some of my
secretaries sometimes pay me when they say that I am the only man
they know who tries to tell the whole truth to our Government in
favour of the Englishman as well as against him. It is certain that
American public opinion is universally supposed to suspect any
American who tries to do anything with the British lion except to
twist his tail--a supposition that I never believed to be
true.--But it is true that the mutual ignorance is as high as the
Andes and as deep as the ocean. Personal acquaintance removes it
and nothing else will.
_To Arthur W. Page_
American Embassy,
London, April 7, 1918.
DEAR ARTHUR:
I daresay you remember this epic:
Old Morgan's wife made butter and cheese;
Old Morgan drank the whey.
There came a wind from West to East
And blew Old Morgan away.
I'm Old Morgan and your mother got ashamed of my wheyness and made
the doctor prescribe cream for me. There's never been such a
luxury, and anybody who supposes that I am now going to get fat and
have my cream stopped simply doesn't know me. So, you see why I'm
intent on shredded wheat biscuits. That's about the best form of
real wheat that will keep. And there's no getting real wheat-stuff,
pure and simple, in any other form.
There's no use in talking about starving people--except perhaps in
India and China. White men can live on anything. The English could
fight a century on cabbage and Brussels sprouts. I've given up hope
of starving the Germans. A gut of dogmeat or horse flesh and a
potato will keep them in fighting trim forever. I've read daily for
two years of impending starvation across the Rhine; but I never
even now hear of any dead ones from hunger. Cold steel or lead is
the only fatal dose for them.
Therefore I know that shredded wheat will carry me through.
You'll see, I hope, from the clippings that I enclose that I'm not
done for yet anyhow. Two speeches a day is no small stunt; and I
did it again yesterday--hand running; and I went out to dinner
afterward. It was a notable occasion--this celebration of the
anniversary of our coming into the war[74].
Nobody here knows definitely just what to fear from the big battle;
but everybody fears more or less. It's a critical time--very. I am
told that that long-range gunning of Paris is the worst form of
frightfulness yet tried. The shells do not kill a great many
people. But their falling every fifteen minutes gets on people's
nerves and they can't sleep. I hear they are leaving Paris in great
numbers. Since the big battle began and the Germans have needed all
their planes and more in France, they've let London alone. But
nobody knows when they will begin again.
Nobody knows any future thing about the war, and everybody faces a
fear.
Secretary Baker stayed with me the two days and three nights he was
here. He made a good impression but he received a better one. He
now knows something about the war. I had at dinner to meet him:
Lloyd George, Prime Minister.
Balfour, Foreign Secretary.
The Chief of Staff.
Lord Derby, War Secretary.
General Biddle, U.S.A., in command in London.
Admiral Sims, U.S.N.
The talk was to the point--good and earnest. Baker went straight
back to France and our _whole_ coöperation began. With the first
group of four he had conferences besides for two days. His coming
was an admirable move.
Yours affectionately,
W.H.P.
_To Ralph W. Page_
London, April 13, 1918.
DEAR RALPH:
Your cheery letters about entertaining governors, planting trees
and shrubbery and your mother's little orchard give us much
pleasure. The Southern Pines paper brings news of very great damage
to the peach crop. I hope it is much exaggerated. Is it?
We haven't any news here, and I send you my weekly note only to
keep my record clear. The great battle--no one talks or thinks of
anything else. We have suffered and still suffer a good deal of
fear and anxiety, with real reason, too. But the military men are
reassuring. Yet I don't know just how far to trust their judgment
or to share their hopes. Certainly this is the most dangerous
situation that modern civilization was ever put in. If we can keep
them from winning any _great_ objective, like Paris or a channel
port, we ought to end the war this year. If not, either they win or
at the least prolong the war indefinitely. It's a hazardous and
trying time.
There were never such casualties on either side as now. Such a
bloody business cannot keep up all summer. But before everybody is
killed or a decisive conclusion is reached, the armies will, no
doubt, dig themselves in and take a period of comparative rest.
People here see and feel the great danger. But the extra effort now
_may_ come too late. Still we keep up good hope. The British are
hard to whip. They never give up. And as for the French army, I
always remember Verdun and keep my courage up.
The wounded are coming over by the thousand. We are incomparably
busy and in great anxiety about the result (though still pretty
firm in the belief that the Germans will lose), and luckily we keep
very well.
Affectionately,
W.H.P.
_To Ralph W. Page_
London, April 7, 1918.
DEAR RALPH:
There used to be a country parson down in Wake County who, when
other subjects were talked out, always took up the pleasing topic
of saving your soul. That's the way your mother and I do--with the
subject of going home. We talk over the battle, we talk over the
boys, we talk over military and naval problems, we discuss the
weather and all the babies, and then take up politics, and talk
over the gossip of the wiseacres; but we seldom finish a
conversation without discussing going home. And we reach just about
as clear a conclusion on our topic as the country parson reached on
his. I've had the doctors going over me (or rather your mother has)
as an expert accountant goes over your books; and I tried to bribe
them to say that I oughtn't to continue my arduous duties here
longer. They wouldn't say any such thing. Thus that device
failed--dead. It looks as if I were destined for a green old age
and no _martyr_ business at all.
All this is disappointing; and I don't see what to do but to go on.
I can't keep from hoping that the big battle may throw some light
on the subject; but there's no telling when the big battle will
end. Nothing ends--that's the trouble. I sometimes feel that the
war may never end, that it may last as the Napoleonic Wars did, for
20 years; and before that time we'll all have guns that shoot 100
miles. We can stay at home and indefinitely bombard the enemy
across the Rhine--have an endless battle at long range.
So, we stick to it, and give the peach trees time to grow up.
We had a big day in London yesterday--the anniversary of our entry
into the war. I send you some newspaper clippings about it.
The next best news is that we have a little actual sunshine--a very
rare thing--and some of the weather is now almost decent....
Affectionately,
W.H.P.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 68: Mr. Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey,
1913-16, an American of Jewish origin who opposed the Zionist movement
as un-American and deceptive.]
[Footnote 69: American member of the Supreme War Council. Afterward
member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace.]
[Footnote 70: Sir Henry Wilson had recently succeeded Sir William
Robertson as Chief of the Imperial General Staff.]
[Footnote 71: First Lord of the Admiralty.]
[Footnote 72: Secretary of Agriculture.]
[Footnote 73: See Chapter XXIV.]
[Footnote 74: This meeting, on April 6, 1918, was held at the Mansion
House. Page and Mr. Balfour were the chief speakers.]