_WAR CAPITALS OF THE ALLIES_
The war capitals of the Allies, Paris and London, have much in common.
Soldiers in many-colored uniforms, from the brilliant red and black and
blue of the French headquarters to the faded, mud-caked khaki of the
helmeted "Tommy" just back from the trenches; Y. M. C. A. secretaries
and nurses; wounded--streets filled with battle-marked and cheerful
men; women in black, who turn neither to the right nor to the left as
they hurry along with eyes that search for that which they will never
see again; and shouting boys.
Of course London and Paris have many other things in common, but these
are at once apparent. I suppose that I mentioned the boys because there
are so many of them, the little fellows, and they are so shrill of
voice. They are doing so many things that the "elders" used to do and
with which we have never before associated them that they are quite
impressive. But London and Paris do not have a monopoly of them.
In their spirit, too, they are part of the stern and stirring time.
On the sea one morning I was awakened by "Billy Buttons"--I was his
christener. His "Hot water, sir," was shrill and cheery; and his smile
was the map of Ireland. On this particular morning I sat up in bed and
said sternly, very sternly, "Billy Buttons, what are you doing here,
anyhow?" and like a shot the sturdy lad sent back the answer, "Doing my
bit, sir; doing my bit."
His daddy sailed the sea bringing bread to Britain until his ship went
down unwarned; a brother died in France; a brother-in-law was killed
in the battle of Jutland; another brother was then recovering from a
wound received in a submarine attack; a sister was a nurse, but Billy
seemed quite as proud, I am ashamed to say, of another sister who was
an "actress"; and Billy himself, Billy of the sixteen blazing buttons,
whose years entitled him to only fourteen, was "doing his bit."
_Blessed Billy Buttons!_
* * * * *
London is massive and slow to arouse. During an air raid I saw women
knitting in the basement of the hotel whither the management had tried
to hurry its guests, and the trams only slightly quickened their pace.
London has learned in the years of this war that "haste makes waste"
and that "direct hits" from airplanes respect not even the stoutest
buildings anyhow. Of course, shrapnel is a different proposition, and
one is very foolish to walk abroad when the "barrage" is under way.
One day I saw an aviator "loop the loop" directly above Piccadilly
Circus. He did the trick repeatedly while not more than four hundred
feet above the hotel roof. Scores of people in the streets did not
turn away from staring into shop windows. At another time I saw two
"silver queens"; beautiful beyond words these dirigibles were when they
manoeuvred in the still air above St. Paul's. For these the crowds did
turn from their mundane pursuits.
* * * * *
My first war visit to London almost convinced me that it was a city of
the "woman of the cigarette," and that she had few sisters, if any, who
were not victims of her habit. In the dining-room of my hotel I found
literally scores of women, perhaps as many as three hundred, smoking.
The young, the middle-aged, and the old, were all at it. I saw a young
mother calmly blow smoke over the head of her eight-year old son, who
displayed only a mild interest.
And what I saw in the hotel I witnessed in every down-town eating-place
that I visited. During my entire journey across England I witnessed
a wild nicotine debauch, for in every public place tobacco was king,
and his throne of smoke filled everywhere. English railway-carriages
are marked "smoking" or left undesignated, but nowadays (this does not
apply to Scotland) every compartment is in reality a smoker. A man
in uniform, particularly, wherever he finds himself, brings forth the
inevitable "pill-box"; and there is none to say him nay.
Out of Hull one morning I found myself chatting with a delightful
company, several gentlemen and a lady; and modesty forbids my telling
who was the one person who did not burn up any cigarettes! Later in the
day a modest young woman, carrying every air of gentle breeding, was
seated directly across from me at dinner. She smoked--languidly, but
nevertheless smoked--between courses. And, by the way, one sees much
more smoking in _public_ among women in London than he sees in Paris.
For a man who is old-fashioned enough to prefer womanhood _à la_ his
wife and mother the "woman of the cigarette" is very disquieting,
to say the least. But not all the women of England smoke. Only a
superficial observer would take a London hotel, or London down-town
dining-rooms, or any number of mere incidents, as a warrant for
charging English womanhood universally with the cigarette habit. I have
found the mother and wife of the average Englishman quite as simple and
"unmodernized" as our own American mothers and wives. New York hotel
life will perhaps approach the hotel life of London; and London, we
should remember, has the whole world to contend with. Her allies and
their families are doing a good deal of the smoking for which she gets
the credit.
* * * * *
Perhaps I am very old-fashioned, too, when I prefer a preacher who
does not smoke; but I do. For the pastor of the church in which I find
a family pew, and where I gather my sons and daughters, I continue to
select a minister who knows not the weed and on whose breath the aroma
of it is not found.
But in London I discovered myself often in the company of clergymen
who blew rings with a deftness not acquired in a fortnight. I did not
allow my own discomfort to inconvenience my brethren, however. A very
distinguished divine blew tobacco smoke into my nose and eyes for an
hour after dinner one evening. I suffered nearly as severely as I did
later from German gas in France, but I bore the infliction meekly.
Three months before I should have denied that any man could have done
for ten seconds what that man did for sixty minutes, and live to tell
the story--without a lisp! But we have learned to do and tolerate a
great many things since April, 1917, and many of us who refuse to
learn to do _some things_ appreciate fully the fact that all who have
the greater good at heart, who labor for the things of first and vast
importance, _must work together_.
In London my feet never tired of pressing the streets that led me to
the golden shrines of history. I lost myself in Westminster Abbey and
in the Tower. I stood upon London Bridge, and hours afterwards found
myself humming the old, old chorus, "London Bridge is falling down,
falling down, falling down." But London Bridge is not falling down.
Hear the Tommies marching in the street!
The low buildings of the mighty city are a surprise for the American,
even though he has known of them. Not until he has walked for miles and
miles by them can he realize that London is a vast community. Always he
has associated cities with "sky-scrapers."
That conditions in a war capital are different from those in ordinary
cities I quickly discovered when I tried to have my watch repaired. The
dealer assured me that he would do his best to have it for me in four
weeks! I purchased an Ingersoll; but not in London, for London was sold
out! The war has drained the European nations of skilled artisans. They
are making other things than watches now.
* * * * *
Paris is swifter on its feet than London, and one does not wait so long
for his laundry. There is much politeness visible, too. A Frenchman
will spend ten minutes in trying to understand what you mean to impart,
simply for the chance of rendering you a service. My first battle on
French soil was with a button that I desired to have a tailor sew on
my coat while I lunched. Between my finger in my mouth, with which I
hoped to reveal to him my gastronomic purposes, and the button in my
other hand, with which I pointed to my coat, I was able to convince him
at last--that I had swallowed a similar button and was looking for a
doctor. He did the best that he could for me--directed me to a druggist!
Paris is exquisite in the little things. She knows and values the
amenities of social intercourse as no other city I have ever visited.
Even the "cabbies" curse you with infinite politeness.
* * * * *
A striking difference between Paris and any Canadian or American city
lies in the fact that even in wartime the former employs so many
people that a few modern labor-saving devices would release. While
the telephone and the typewriter are used, they are not common. To
this day it is impossible to telephone to the Paris Gas Society, an
enormous organization with several hundred branches. The company does
not wish to be bothered. London is not unlike Paris in this respect.
In the metropolis of the British Empire thousands of ministers and
professional men and business houses do not have telephones. In Paris
when your gas is in trouble you take a day off and "explain." You may
finally receive the assurance that the matter will be adjusted sometime
within the week. If you grumble, a clerk will smile and say, "C'est la
guerre." And of course the war is much to blame for delays, but more
telephones would help greatly; typewriters and carbon-paper would be
more efficient than cumbersome copying-press machines, and a checkbook
would release many a lad and many an elderly gentleman who now walk
about paying bills with currency.
* * * * *
But Paris is inspiring in her quiet courage and her unshaken
determination. Long-range guns and air raids have left her unbroken.
Indeed, they seem to have cured her of the "nerves" she was supposed
to have. On the morning after a distressing night of suspense
following the loss of more than a hundred lives as the result of
bombs, I rode from Paris to Bordeaux. At dinner I sat opposite a very
distinguished-looking gentleman. He was quite friendly, and introduced
himself; he had been Master of Horse to King George of Greece, was
a brigadier-general in the old Grecian army, and was of one of the
most ancient families of Montenegro--le Comte de Cernowitz. After the
pro-German designs of King Constantine of Greece had become established
le Comte de Cernowitz took up his residence in Paris. As he left me, he
casually remarked that on the previous night his house had been struck
by a bomb, that the roof had been torn off, but that no one had been
killed. He was going to Bordeaux to "await the repairs"!
* * * * *
And Paris now is always a city of surprises. Early one Monday morning
I found myself drawing into a great station. The night had been a very
uncomfortable one. I was in a compartment with a friend--an American
captain--and two French officers. The Frenchmen were very polite, but
they preferred to have the window closed. The air was very close. I
would cautiously open the window, and after an interval our allies
would cautiously close it! The compartment was dark, and finally I
shoved a corner of my pillow under the sash, and waited. Presently down
came the window on the pillow! We had a little breeze for the rest of
the night, anyhow.
I had boarded the train at Rennes, and had been surprised at the close
inspection the local officers had given my papers. But on alighting
at Paris I was even more surprised. French and American soldiers were
drawn up on both sides of the platform, and at the gate stood General
Pershing and his staff. Six o'clock in the morning is early for a
commanding officer to be meeting trains! I waited, and was rewarded by
seeing the Secretary of War, Mr. Newton Baker, whose secret journey to
Europe and the western front was one of the unusual military features
of 1918, leave his car.
* * * * *
Both London and Paris have a regal distinction, a distinction in
common. They are the meeting-points for the going and coming armies of
democracy. No double-track system is this. As they go, so they return.
Here by the Seine and yonder by the Thames these knights of a new
era salute each other as they pass. From Canada and Australia, from
Scotland and Ireland, and from a dozen other places, some of them as
far away as South Africa, the English-speaking soldiers are gathered
into the welcoming arms of London and then thrust forth to be scattered
along the lines of Flanders and France. And to London they come
back--those who do not remain where they fell--to be welcomed tenderly
and then dropped into the distant places that have never faded from
their eyes in all the days of their bloody pilgrimage.
And to Paris the world sends her best, the black and white and yellow
children of the Old World and the New; and Paris smiles upon them
through her resplendent tears, and passes them on. Later, by way of her
vast treasures of the storied past, they march again to find the track
to the open sea and their "own countries."
Once I saw two armies in the selfsame street, one dirty and bedraggled
and with thinned ranks, the other fresh and with the light of eager
quest in its eyes. One was marching south while the other was marching
north. One was from Yorkshire in old England and the other was from
America. Ah, it was a sight to turn stone into tears when the tall,
sinewy lads from the western hemisphere halted just where the avenue
faces the Madeleine, and cheered those weary heroes marching back from
hell.
Paris is far behind me as I write, but the soldiers who shouted their
admiration for the wounds of a thousand convalescent "Tommies" bound
for "Blighty" are with me. God only knows how many of those far-called
heroes will be marching down that glorious way of Paris when the
battalion musters out for home. They are now where civilization has
reared her altars, where democracy has found her Gethsemane. But this
we all know: they will "carry on."