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diff --git a/41252-8.txt b/41252-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fb2073a..0000000 --- a/41252-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11087 +0,0 @@ - THE ASSAULT - - - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost -no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - - - -Title: The Assault -Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-Time - -Author: Frederic William Wile - -Release Date: October 31, 2012 [EBook #41252] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ASSAULT *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - -[Illustration: Cover] - - - - -[Illustration: Ambassador Gerard.] - - - - - THE ASSAULT - - Germany Before the Outbreak and - England in War-Time - - - _A Personal Narrative_ - - - By - FREDERIC WILLIAM WILE - - Author of "Men Around the Kaiser" - - - - ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND FACSIMILES OF - DOCUMENTS AND CARTOONS - - - - INDIANAPOLIS - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1916 - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - - - PRESS OF - BRAUNWORTH & CO. - BOOK MANUFACTURERS - BROOKLYN, N. Y. - - - - - _To_ - AMBASSADOR AND MRS. GERARD - - LIFE-SAVERS - - IN GRATITUDE - - - - - INTRODUCTION - - -This is not a "war book." It has not been my privilege at any stage of -the Great Blood-Letting to come into close contact with the spectacular -clash and din of the fray. Abler pens than mine, many of them wielded -by the "neutral" hands of American colleagues, are immortalizing the -terrible, yet irresistibly fascinating, scenes of this most stupendous -drama. But every drama has its scenario and its prologue and its -behind-the-curtain scenes--none ever written was so rich in these -preliminaries and accessories as is Europe's epic. To have witnessed and -lived through some of these was vouchsafed me; and to take American -readers with me down the line of the past year's recollections and -impressions is the sole object of this unpretentious effort. History, -Carlyle said, was some one's record of personal experiences. To such -experiences, as far as possible, the pages of this book are confined. - -For thirteen years to the week--I have always had a respectful horror of -thirteen--I was a resident of Berlin. During the first five years of -that period my identity was clear: I was the representative in Germany -of an American newspaper, the _Chicago Daily News_. But in 1906 I -became an international complication, for it was then I joined the staff -of the _London Daily Mail_, which converted my status into that of an -_American_ serving _British_ journalistic interests in _Germany_. It -was not long afterward that welcome opportunity presented itself to -renew home professional ties in connection with my British work, and for -several years prior to the outbreak of the war I carried the credentials -of Berlin correspondent of the _New York Times_ and the _Chicago -Tribune_. They were on my person, with my United States passport, the -night of August 4, 1914, when the Kaiser's police arrested me as an -"English spy." - -I feel it necessary to introduce so highly personal a narrative with -these details in order to make plain, at the outset, that it is the -narrative of an American born and bred. My proudest boast during ten -years' association with Great Britain's premier newspaper organization -was that I never lost my Americanism. My English editor, on the occasion -of my earliest physical conflict with the Mailed Fist in Berlin, -doubtless recalls taking me to task for invoking the protection of the -United States Embassy, just as my British colleagues, concerned in the -same imbroglio, had invoked the aid of their Embassy. Of the reams I -have written for the _Daily Mail_ in my day, I never sent it anything -which sprang more sincerely from the heart than the message to its -editor that I had not renounced allegiance to my country when I pledged -my professional services to a British newspaper. - -I have no higher aspiration, as far as this volume is concerned, than -that critics of it, hostile or friendly, may pronounce it "pro-Ally" -from start to finish. I shall survive even the charge that it is -"pro-English." I mean it to be all of that, as I have tried to breathe -sincerity into every line of it. But I shall not feel inclined to -accept without protest an accusation that the book is "anti-German." It -is true that I regard this essentially a German-made, or rather a -Prussian-made, war, and that I hold Prussian militarism and militarists -solely responsible for plunging the world into this unending bath of -blood and tears. It is true that I wish to see Germany beaten. I wish -her beaten for the Allies' sake and for my own country's sake. A -victorious Germany would be a menace to international liberty and become -automatically a threat to the happiness and freedom of the United -States. My years in Germany taught me that. But I cherish no scintilla -of hatred or animosity toward the German people as individuals, who will -be the real victims of the war. I saw them with my own eyes literally -dragged into the fight against their will, fears and judgment. I know -from their own lips that they considered it a cruelly unnecessary war -and did not want it. They were joyful and prosperous a year and a half -ago--never more so. They craved a continuance of the simple blessings of -peace, unless their tearful protestations in the fateful month preceding -the drawing of their mighty sword were the plaints of a race of -hypocrites, and I do not think the percentage of hypocrisy higher in -Germany, man for man, than elsewhere in the world. The German's _Gott -strafe England_ cult, for example, is no revelation to any man who has -lived among them. Their hatred for Perfidious Albion has long been -vigorous and purposeful. - -During the war I have lived in Germany, England and the United States--a -week of it in Berlin, three months at different periods in America, and -the rest of the time in London. My observations of Germany have not -been confined to the six and a half days the Prussian police permitted -me to tarry in their midst, for my work in London has dealt almost -exclusively with day-by-day examination of that weird production which -will be known to history as the German war-time Press. I am quite sure -the perspective of the life and times of the Kaiser's people in their -"great hour" was clearer from the vantage-ground of a newspaper desk -near the Thames embankment than it could possibly have been had it been -my lot to view the Fatherland at war as an observer writing, under the -hypnotic influence of mass-suggestion, of Germany from within. - -Though I deal with Britain in war-time, no pretense is made of treating -so vast a subject except by way of fleeting impressions. Indeed, -nothing but snap-shots of British life are possible at the moment, so -kaleidoscopic are its developments and vagaries. I am conscious that -the pictures I have drawn are, therefore, superficial, but no portrayal -of a people in a state of flux could well be otherwise. Although the -concluding chapters were written in October, conditions now (in -mid-December) have altered vitally in many directions. Sir John French -no longer commands the British Army in France and Flanders. Serbia has -gone the way of Belgium. Gallipoli has been abandoned. The Coalition -Government, established at the end of May, is widely considered a -failure at the end of December. The Man in the Street, that oracle of -all-wisdom in these Isles, is asking whether the war can be won without -still another, and more sweeping, change of National leadership. - -I hope my British friends, and particularly my professional colleagues -of ten years' standing, will not find my snap-shots too under-exposed. -The camera was in pro-British hands every minute of the time. If the -pictures appear indistinct, I trust the photography will at least not be -criticized as in any respect due to lack of sympathy with the British -cause. - -F. W. W. -London, December 20, 1915. - - - - - CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER - - I. The Curtain Raiser - II. The First Act - III. The Plot Develops - IV. The Stage Managers - V. Slow Music - VI. The Climax - VII. War - VIII. The Americans - IX. August Fourth - X. The War Reaches Me - XI. The Last Farewell - XII. Safe Conduct - XIII. Complacency Rules The Waves - XIV. Pro-Ally Uncle Sam - XV. The Helmsmen - XVI. The General, The Admiral and the King - XVII. "Your King And Country Want You" - XVIII. War in the Dark - XIX. The Internal Foe - XX. The Empire of Hate - XXI. The New England - XXII. Quo Vadis? - - - - - New Introductory Chapter - - - HOW EUROPE VIEWS AMERICAN INTERVENTION - - -It will hardly be possible for any faithful chronicler of that -transcendent event to record that America's entry into the war set -embattled Europe by the ears. The most such a historian can say of the -impression created in Allied countries is that the abandonment of our -neutrality toward the "natural foe to liberty" produced profound -satisfaction but nothing in the way of a staggering sensation. Even in -Germany and among her vassals, declaration of war by the United States -failed to provoke consternation, although it was received in a spirit of -nonchalance which was more studied than real. The Damoclean sword of -Washington had hung so long in the mid-air of indecision that when the -blow fell its effect was to a large extent lost upon beneficiary and -victim alike. The peoples who became our Allies were gratified; the -Germans mortified. But our leap into the arena stained with nearly -three years of combatant blood was so belated that it seemed bereft of -the power to plunge either our friends into paroxysms of enthusiasm or -our enemies into the depths of despair. - -I am speaking exclusively of the first impressions generated by -President Wilson's call to arms. In Allied Europe, as well as Germanic -Europe, opinion is changing, now that the words of April are merging -into the deeds of midsummer. Still different emotions will fire the -breasts of both our comrades-in-arms and of the common foe when the full -magnitude of American intervention dawns upon their reluctant -consciousness. As yet the illimitable import of America's "coming in" -is only faintly realized. Europe's attitude toward the new belligerent -is too strongly intrenched in decade-old disbelief in the existence of -American idealism and in gross ignorance of our actual potentialities -for war, spiritual as well as physical, to be lightly abandoned. We -shall have to win our spurs. There is at this writing no inclination -whatever to present them to us on trust. - -In the introduction to the original edition of _The Assault_, which was -completed at the end of 1915, I was un-neutral enough to utter the pious -hope that Germany would be beaten. I confessed to the creed that "a -victorious Germany would be a menace to international liberty and become -automatically a threat to the happiness and freedom of the United -States." I said that "my years in Germany taught me that"--years lived -in closest contact with Prussian militarism long before it had taken the -concrete form of savagery at sea. With that passion for corroboration -of his own prejudices and predictions, which is inherent in the average -man, and which dominates most writers, I rejoice to feel that our -government and country have at length joined in liberty's fray from the -identical motives which induced me at the outset to take the only side -that it seemed possible for an American to espouse. - -Properly to analyze Europe's mentality in respect of the United States' -entry into the war we need to bear in mind that for the thirty-two -preceding months President Wilson was the riddle of the political -universe. Europe had been assured ceaselessly since August, 1914, that -America was overwhelmingly and irretrievably pro-Ally, though its -confidence in such assertions was shipwrecked when we failed to go to -war over the _Lusitania_ incident and was never fully restored. Not -even Berlin could reconcile the Washington government's invincible -neutrality with the alleged existence of universal counter-sentiment. -Europeans are educated to believe that public opinion is the only -monarch to whom the American citizenry owns allegiance. They were -unable to comprehend a president who so resolutely refused to bow to the -people's sovereign will. In its myopic misconception of American -conditions, Allied Europe indulged in grotesque misinterpretation of Mr. -Wilson's hesitancy and mystic diplomacy. He had been "re-elected by -German votes." In London Americans were solemnly asked if the true -explanation of his policy did not lie in the fact that he had "a German -wife!" It was also mooted that he had "a secret understanding" with -Count Bernstorff. The president was this, that and the other -thing--everything, in fact, except what he ought to be. No American -chief magistrate since Lincoln was ever so magnificently misunderstood, -none so incorrigibly maligned. - -Thus it was that although the United States' action under President -Wilson's sagacious leadership did not fill Europe with either animation -or excitement, it nevertheless came as a full-fledged surprise to both -sets of belligerents. Briton, Frenchman, Russian and Italian, as well -as German, Austrian and Hungarian, each in his own dogmatic way, had -long since and definitely made up their minds that America did not mean -to fight. Their cocksureness on this cardinal point was not unnaturally -supported by the circumstances of President Wilson's re-election on what -was commonly understood to be the democratic candidate's paramount -campaign issue--his success in keeping the country out of the war. In -the two or three days in which Mr. Wilson's fate trembled in the balance -of the Electoral College, a London newspaper, venting splenitic feelings -long pent up, gratefully acclaimed the premature announcement of Mr. -Hughes' triumph as an historic and deserved rebuke of the statesman who -was "too proud to fight." - -Within a month President Wilson, in his first public utterance since -election day, made his "peace-without-victory" address to the Senate. -This cryptic deliverance was interpreted in Allied Europe as not only -obliterating all possibility of America's entering the war against -Germany, but as actually promoting Germany's efforts, launched about the -same time, to secure a premature, or "German," peace. There was -probably no time during the entire war when feeling against the -president and the United States in general ran higher in England and -France than during the ensuing weeks. It was not so much what one read -in the public prints, for press utterances were restrained if not -unqualifiedly friendly, that impelled many an American in London and -Paris to seek cover from the withering blast of criticism and impatience -to which he now found his country subjected. It was rather the -sentiments encountered among Englishmen and Frenchmen in private that -supplied the real index to, and revealed the full intensity of, the -disappointment and indignation now aroused in Allied lands. - -Indelibly impressed upon my memory is the passionate outburst of a -dear--and, of course, temperamental--French friend in London. He is a -gentleman, a scholar and sincere lover of America, where he found the -charming lady who is now his wife. He had retired to a bed of illness -in consequence of the climatic iniquities which will forever make it -impossible for a Frenchman ever really to like England, and I was paying -him a neighborly visit of inquiry. Though I had hoped and intended that -the acrimonious topic of America would for once be eliminated from our -conversation, I was not to be spared what turned out to be almost the -most violent castigation of the United States and all its works under -which I could ever remember to have winced. I was left in no doubt that -his outpouring of righteous Gallic wrath, though it sprang to a certain -degree from temperature as well as temperament, was the voice of France -crying out in holy anger with the great but recreant sister republic. -Wilson had "surrendered to the Germans and pro-Germans." They were now -getting their reward. The president was "playing the Kaiser's peace -game." He may not have meant to do so, but that is what his Senate -manifesto amounted to, in French estimation. "The Americans care only -for their money." So be it. France would not forget. _Jamais_! -Americans would rue the day they had sent back to the White House the -man who was now stabbing crucified democracy in the back! - -The essential difference between the French and the English is that -Frenchmen usually say what they feel, and Englishmen feel what they do -not say. Emotions were given to Frenchmen to be expressed; to -Englishmen, to be suppressed. Almost identically the same emotions -which fired the French soul, as typified by the instance I have just -cited, filled British breasts, but owing to the psychic machinery with -which his organism is equipped the Englishman was able more successfully -to stifle them. The public tone toward the latest manifestation of our -"war policy" was punctiliously correct. It was discussed by the great -newspapers in terms of polite dismay but almost invariably in good -temper. Yet millions of Britons were boiling within, and if wearing -their hearts on their sleeves had been "good form," there is little -reason to doubt that their ebullitions would have been no less -articulate or meaningful than those of my distinguished French friend -herein narrated. - -It was about at this time, the end of 1916, that an American colleague, -Edward Price Bell, of _The Chicago Daily News_, set forth in the columns -of _The Times_ upon a bold adventure--an attempt to persuade captious -Britons that, far from desiring to "play the Kaiser's game," President -Wilson was actually anxious to make war on Germany, and, indeed, was -deliberately, as was his way, proceeding in that direction. It was a -risky throw for the doyen of the American press in London, who enjoyed a -reputation for sanity and sagacity and who had good reason for desiring -to preserve the respect of a community in which his professional lot had -been cast for sixteen years. I purpose summarizing the course of Bell's -effort to scale the walls of British prejudice because of its immensely -symptomatic and psychological interest. - -"I believe that Wilson wants to go to war," Bell wrote to _The Times_ on -December 23. "I believe that he wants to fight Germany. I believe that -he wants Germany to commit herself to a program that would warrant him -in asking the American people to enter the conflict." In every allied -quarter in Europe, practically without exception, Bell's letter produced -a prodigious and contemptuous guffaw. Americans in Europe, any number -of them, joined in the gibes. Undismayed, Bell returned to the attack -within three days. "America can not keep out of this war unless Germany -gives way," he wrote on December 26. "The time may come very soon when -President Wilson will be under the necessity of making his appeal to the -American nation." The thunderer did not consign Bell's letters to the -editorial waste-basket, where most Englishmen believed they belonged, -yet it declined, in its scrupulously courteous way, to associate itself -with its correspondent's manifestly fantastic and fanatical sophistry. -In an editorial comment _The Times_ expressed its reluctance to place -any trust in Bell's exposition of the policy "which Mr. Wilson so -carefully wraps up." Bell had by this time become a laughing-stock far -beyond the confines of the metropolitan area of London. Paris, -Petrograd and Rome read his letters and shook with incredulous mirth. -The feelings of fellow-Americans toward him began to be tinged with -pity. - -Yet Bell broke forth afresh on New Year's Day with his third letter to -Printing House Square, asserting, roundly, that "America will and can -support no peace but an Entente peace." On January 25 _The Times_ -printed Bell's fourth letter within five weeks, in which he this time -declared unequivocally that "Mr. Wilson's purpose is solely to inform -the world what America stands for and what he is willing to ask America, -if need be, to fight for." - -Germany now proclaimed her new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. -Mr. Gerard was recalled from Berlin and Count Bernstorff received his -passports in Washington. Yet Allied faith in America, momentarily -revived by these events, took wings once more when it became known that -Mr. Wilson's next "step" would be armed neutrality. The editor of _The -Times_, who had been exceptionally tolerant of the pestiferous Bell, -imagined now, I fancy, that events had at length put a timely end to the -letter-writing energies of the Chicago scribe; for Englishmen, with -notably few exceptions, had by this time pretty well "eliminated" -America from their calculations. But on February 22, inspired perhaps -by the rugged traditions clinging to that date, Bell cleared for action -for the fifth time and next day _The Times_ printed him for the fifth -time. He wrote: "I will risk the view that we are on the edge of great -things in America--things worthy of the country of Washington and -Lincoln. America, I feel, is about to fructify internationally--about to -make her real contribution to humanity and history." _The Times_ now -went so far as to suggest, with characteristic prudence, that Bell's -"sagacious and racy letter deserves careful consideration by all who are -trying to understand the situation in Washington." Unhappily, there was -little evidence in the continued British mistrust of America that _The -Times'_ counsel was being taken widely to heart. - -On February 27 Bell craved the indulgence of _The Times_ for his sixth, -and final, epistle to the skeptics. With what was destined to turn out -to be rare prescience and penetration, he now said that Mr. Wilson's -delay in coming to grips with Hohenzollernism meant only that "the -president wants the public temper so hot throughout America that it will -instantly burn to ash any revolutionary unrest or any opposition by the -pacifist diehards." Five weeks later the United States and Germany were -at war, with the American nation united in fervent support of the -president's pronunciamento that the task which demanded the renunciation -of our neutrality was one to which "we can dedicate our lives, our -fortunes, everything we are and everything we have." The hour of -Europe's awakening from its scornful dreams had come. - -For several days after Congress, at the president's instigation, voted -to "accept the gage of battle," there lay neatly folded up in a certain -front room of the American Embassy in London a fine, new American flag. -It had been put there for a special purpose--to be hoisted at a -psychological moment believed to be imminent. Our people in Grosvenor -Gardens, in their hearty, imaginative American way, considered that -there might possibly be a "demonstration" in welcome of Britain's latest -comrade-in-arms. There were visions of a procession, brass bands and -cheering crowds; and the spick and span stars and stripes were to be -flung to the glad breeze when the "demonstrators" reached the scene and -called for a speech from Ambassador Page on the Embassy balcony. Such -things happened when Italy and Roumania "came in." Surely history would -not fail to repeat itself in the case of "daughter America." But -neither procession, bands, cheers nor crowds ever materialized. After -all, we could not expect Englishmen to celebrate in honor of the -greatest mistake they had ever made in their lives. That would be -something more than un-English. It would be a violation of all the laws -of human nature. - -Yet I suppose there was not an American in Great Britain who was not -keenly disappointed at the conspicuously undemonstrative character of -our welcome into the Allied fold. I must not be understood as -minimizing the warmth of either governmental or press utterances evoked -by President Wilson's Lincolnesque speech to Congress and the action -which so promptly ensued. The sentiments expressed by Mr. Lloyd George, -Mr. Asquith, Mr. Bonar Law, Lord Robert Cecil and Lord Bryce, in and out -of Parliament, and the thoughts which found vivid expression in the -columns of the newspapers of London and the provinces left little to be -desired; but eloquent and hearty as they were, their effect upon that -all-powerful molder of British public opinion known as the Man in the -Street was strangely negligible. I am sure I am not the only American -in England who, waiting for words of greeting from British friends and -not getting them, was irresistibly constrained to search for the reason. -Our chagrin was not lessened by assurances from Paris that "France was -going wild with joy"; that the president's speech was being read aloud -in the schools and officially placarded on all the hoardings of the -republic; that the government buildings were flying the tricolor and -"Old Glory" side by side; and that American men were being publicly -embraced in the boulevards. - -Many Americans found themselves, for reasons never entirely clear to -them, the objects of "congratulation." I know of at least one instance -in which a very estimable American lady, showered with "congratulations" -by British friends on the action of her country, preserved sufficient -presence of mind to suggest that she thought "congratulations" were due -to the Allies. Another favorite view advanced by _vox populi_ was that -America had only "come in" at this late stage of the sanguinary game -because "the war was won" and intervention now was "safe" and "cheap." -It was not uncommon to be told that our determination to "spend the -whole force of the nation" was due to commercial acumen and our desire -to safeguard the heavy "investment" we had already made in the Allied -cause. Last-ditchers--their name was legion: the Englishmen who refused -to believe even yet that America "meant business"--declined to throw -their hats into the air and shout until "big words" had become "big -deeds." Much more impressive in my own ears seemed the explanation that -Britons were not tumultuous in our honor because these days of endless -sacrifice--the spring offensive in France was at its height and the -nation's best were falling in thousands--were not days for cheering and -flag-waving. And, finally, there was that extensive school of thought -which had always and sincerely opposed American intervention on the -ground that America, as a neutral granary and arsenal, was a more -effective Allied asset than a belligerent America which would naturally -and necessarily husband its vast resources for its own military -requirements. - -The story of Germany's state of mind toward America's entry into the -lists against her is soon told. The German government and German people -looked upon us as all but declared enemies throughout the war. They -felt, and repeatedly said, that we were doing them quite as much damage -as neutrals as we could possibly inflict in the guise of belligerents. -That, indeed, was the argument on which Hindenburg and his -fellow-strategists based the "safety" of inaugurating unrestricted -submarine warfare and the moral certainty of war with the United States -as a result. Not all Germans blithely relegated the prospect of a -formally hostile America to the realm of inconsequence. Hindenburg and -Ludendorff know nothing about America. But men like Ballin, Gwinner, -Rathenau and Dernburg know that the United States, in a famous German -idiom, is, indeed, "the land of unlimited possibilities." There can be -no manner of doubt that the vision of America's limitless resources -harnessed to those of the nations already at war with their country -always filled the business giants of the Fatherland with all the terror -of a nightmare. But as those elements, both before and during the war, -were as a voice crying in the wilderness of Prussian militarism, they -were condemned to silence when the dreaded thing became a reality; and -the only note that issued forth from Berlin was the "inspired" croak in -the government-controlled press that only the expected had happened; -that Hindenburg's plans had been made with exact regard for that which -had now supervened, and that Germany's irresistible march to victory -would not and could not be arrested by anything the Americans could do. - -Doubts were universally expressed in America and in Allied Europe as to -whether the Kaiser's government would permit President Wilson's crushing -indictment of Prussianism to be published in Germany. One heard of -picturesque schemes to drop millions of copies of the speech over the -German trenches and towns from aeroplanes. In at least one widely-read -German newspaper, the _Berliner Tageblatt_, a Radical-Liberal journal -which has not entirely surrendered its old-time independence, the -president's speech was printed almost verbatim. In nearly every paper -there were adequate extracts. But such effect as they may have been -designed to create upon the German body politic--particularly the -president's insistence that America's war is with "the Imperial German -Government" and not with "the German people"--was nullified by the press -bureau's imperious orders to editors to reject Mr. Wilson's "moral -clap-trap" as impudent and insolent interference with Germany's domestic -concerns. Under the leadership of the celebrated Berlin theologian, -Professor Doctor Adolf Harnack, meetings of German scholars and -_savants_ were organized for the purpose of giving public expression to -the "unanimity and indignation with which the German nation protests -against the American president's officious intrusion upon matters which -are the affair of the German people and themselves alone." Or words to -that effect. - -Meantime the so-called comic press of Germany, which to an extent -probably unknown in any other country of the world gives the keynote for -popular sentiment, engaged in an orgy of unbridled abuse of President -Wilson, the United States and Americans in general. The _leitmotif_ of -hundreds of cartoons, caricatures and jokes was that the "American money -power" had "dragged" us into the war. _Simplicissimus_ epitomized -German thoughts of the moment in a full-page drawing entitled "High -Finance Crowning Wilson Autocrat of America by the Grace of Mammon." -The president was depicted enthroned upon a dais resting on bulging -money-bags and surmounted by a canopy fringed with gold dollars. A -crown of shells and cartridges is being placed upon his head by the -grinning shade of the late J. Pierpont Morgan. In the background is the -filmy outline of George Washington, delivering the farewell address. - -Then, of a sudden, German press policy toward the United States -underwent a radical change. Silence supplanted abuse. It became so -oppressive and so profound as to be eloquent. The purpose of this -organized indifference soon became crystal-clear: on the one hand to -bolster up German confidence in the innocuousness of American enmity, -and, on the other, to slacken the United States' war preparations by -committing no "overt act" of word or deed designed to stimulate them. -Bernstorff had by this time reached Berlin and there is reason to -suspect that his was the crafty hand directing the new policy of -ostensible disinterestedness in American belligerency. The arrival of -American naval forces in European waters; the inauguration of -conscription; the far-reaching preparations for succoring our Allies -with money, food and ships; the splendid success of the Liberty Loan; -the presence of General Pershing and the headquarters staff of the -United States Army in France; the enrollment of nearly ten million young -men for military service; our ambitious plans for the air war; the -girding up of our loins in every conceivable direction, that we may play -a worthy part in the war--all these things have been either deliberately -ignored in Germany, by imperious government order, or, when not -altogether suppressed from public knowledge, been slurred or glossed -over in a way designed to make them appear as harmless or "bluff." -Finally, in an "inspired" article which offered sheer affront to the -large body of truly patriotic American citizens of German extraction, -the _Cologne Gazette_ bade Germans to continue to pin their faith in -"our best allies," _i.e._, the German-Americans, who might be relied -upon (quoth the semi-official Watch on the Rhine) to "inject into -American public opinion an element of restraint and circumspection which -has already often been a cause of embarrassment to Herr Wilson and his -English friends." "We may be sure," concluded this impudent homily, -"that our compatriots are still at their post." - -Events have marched fast since America "came in." In Great Britain and -France men of perspicacity are not quite so jubilant over the effects of -the Russian revolution as they were three months ago. They realize that -the amazing cataclysm which began in Petrograd on March 13 warded off a -treacherous peace between Romanoff and Hohenzollern, but also, alas! -that it has effectually eliminated Russia as a fighting factor for the -purposes of this year's campaign. Englishmen and Frenchmen are only now -beginning to comprehend the immeasurable task that confronts New Russia -in the erection of a democratic state on the ruins of autocracy while -faced by the simultaneous necessity of warring against an enemy in -occupation of vast Russian territory. - -To-day there is little inclination in London or Paris to underestimate -the providential importance of American intervention. The specter of -dwindling manpower in both countries is of itself sufficient to cause -them to gaze gratefully and longingly toward our untapped reservoir of -human sinews. _What is happening in chaotic and liberty-dazed Russia -forces Englishmen and Frenchmen, however disconcerting to their pride, -to acknowledge the absolute indispensability of American support_. -There are many among them candid enough to admit that democracy's -horizon might now be perilously beclouded if the United States had -refrained from playing a man's part in the battle of the nations. In -Berlin, too, the true import of America's decision is dawning upon -government and governed alike. - -Our Allies expect us to justify our world-wide reputation for speed and -organizing capacity and to transfer our activities from the forum of -Demosthenes to the field of Mars. They are impressed by what we have -already accomplished--I write on the day when the arrival of the first -American army in France, well within three months of our entering the -war, is officially announced. But amid our remote isolation from the -scene of the conflict, safeguarded by geographical guarantees that its -consuming fires can hardly ever sear our own soil, Englishmen and -Frenchmen wonder whether we are able to estimate the magnitude of the -effort required of us if we are to rise to the majestic zenith of our -potentialities. Some of them, seemingly no wiser for their myopia of -recent times, are frankly skeptical on that point. - -It is our bounden duty, as I am sure it is our unconquerable resolve, to -disillusion our Allies. To us has fallen the privilege of proving that -our mighty sword has been drawn in earnest and that we shall not sheathe -it until America's plighted word is gloriously made good. "Make Good!" -Leaping to the tasks which await us on land and sea with that indigenous -idiom on their lips, our soldiers and sailors need crave for no more -inspiring slogan. Allied Europe expects us--expects us almost -anxiously--to "make good." - -London, June 28, 1917. - - - - - THE ASSAULT - - - - CHAPTER I - - THE CURTAIN RAISER - - -Countess Hannah von Bismarck missed her aim. The beribboned bottle of -"German champagne" with which she meant truly well to baptize the newest -Hamburg-American leviathan of sixty thousand-odd tons on the placid -Saturday afternoon of June 20, 1914, went far wide of its mark. The -Kaiser, impetuous and resourceful, came gallantly and instantaneously to -the rescue. Grabbing the bottle while it still swung unbroken in midair -by the black-white-red silken cord which suspended it from the launching -pavilion, Imperial William crashed it with accuracy and propelling power -a Marathon javelin-thrower might have envied squarely against the vast -bow. The granddaughter of the Iron Chancellor, a bit crestfallen -because she had only thrown like any woman exclaimed: "I christen thee, -great ship, _Bismarck_!" and the milky foam of the _Schaumwein_ trickled -in rivulets down the nine- or ten-story side of the most Brobdingnagian -product which ever sprang from shipwrights' hands. Then, with ten -thousand awestruck others gathered there on the Elbe side, I watched the -huge steel carcass, released at last from the stocks which had so long -held it prisoner, glide and creak majestically down the greasy ways -midst our chanting of _Deutschland, Deutschland, über Alles_. Half a -minute later the _Bismarck_ was resting serenely, house-high, on the -surface of the murky river five hundred yards away. The Kaiser and Herr -Ballin shook hands feelingly, the royal monarch smiling benignly on the -shipping king. The military band blared forth _Heil Dir im -Siegeskranz_, and the last fête Hamburg was destined to know for many a -troublous month had passed into history. - -Countess von Bismarck had missed her aim! I wonder if there are not -many, like myself, who witnessed the ill-omened launch and who endow it -now with a meaning which events of the intervening year have borne out? -For, surely, when the Great General Staff at Berlin reviews -dispassionately the beginnings of the war, as it some day will do, there -will be an absorbingly interesting explanation of how the machine which -Moltke, the Organizer of Victory, handed down to an incompetent namesake -and nephew missed _its_ aim, too--the winning of the war by a series of -short, sharp and staggering blows which should decide the issue in favor -of the Germans before the next snow. The argument has been advanced, in -vindication of Germany's innocent intentions, that the Hamburg-American -line would never have launched the mighty _Bismarck_ if the Fatherland -was planning or contemplating war. But the ship was not to have made -her maiden transatlantic voyage until April 1, 1915, the centenary of -her great patronym's birth. The German Staff expected to dictate a -glorious peace long before that time, and might have done so but for -Belgium, Joffre, "that contemptible little British army," and other -miscalculations. If the Staff, like Countess von Bismarck, had not -missed its aim, the _Bismarck_ would have poked her gigantic nose into -New York harbor on scheduled time, a mammoth symbol of Germany, the -World Power indeed, and fitting incarnation of the new Mistress of the -Seas. Who knows but what perhaps grandiose visions of that sort were in -the far-seeing Herr Ballin's card-index mind? - -The Kaiser customarily visits the Venice of the North on his way to Kiel -Week, the yachting festival invented by him to outrival England's Cowes, -and the launch of the _Bismarck_ was timed accordingly. From Hamburg the -Emperor proceeds aboard the Imperial yacht _Hohenzollern_ up the Elbe to -Brunsbüttel for the annual regatta of the North German Yacht Squadron, a -club consisting for the most part of Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck -patricians with the love of the sea inborn in their Hanseatic veins. -There was no variation from the time-honored programme in 1914. William -II even adhered to his unfailing practice of delivering an apotheosis of -the marine profession at the regatta-dinner of the N.G.Y.S. aboard the -Hamburg-American steamer on which Herr Ballin is wont to entertain for -Kiel Week a party of two or three hundred German and foreign notables. -There was no glimmer of coming events in the guest-list of S.S. -_Victoria Luise_, for it included Mr. John Walter, one of the hereditary -proprietors of _The Times_, and several other distinguished Englishmen -soon to be Germany's hated foes. - -By that occult agency which determines with diabolical delight the irony -of fate, it was ordained that Kiel, 1914, should be the occasion of a -spectacular Anglo-German love-feast, with a squadron of British -super-dreadnoughts anchored in the midst of the peaceful German Armada -as a sign to all the world of the non-explosive warmth of English-German -"relations." That, at any rate, was the design of that unfortunately -nebulous element in Berlin, headed by Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg, known -as the Peace Party; for had certain highly-placed Germans acting under -the Imperial Chancellor's inspiration had their way, the British -Admiralty yacht _Enchantress_, the official craft of the First Lord of -the Admiralty and actually bearing that dignitary, Mr. Winston -Churchill, M.P., would have been convoyed to Kiel by Vice-Admiral Sir -George Warrender's ironclads. The Kaiser's approval of the Churchill -project--as I happen to know--had been sought and secured. Eminent -friends of an Anglo-German rapprochement in London had done the -necessary log-rolling in England. Matters were regarded in Germany so -much of a _fait accompli_ that an anchorage diagram issued by the naval -authorities at Kiel only a fortnight before the "Week" indicated the -precise spot at which Mr. Churchill and the _Enchantress_ would make -fast in the harbor of Kiel Bay. - -[Illustration: Watching for the Kaiser's Armada.] - -But Mr. Churchill did not come. I know why. Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz, -to whom the half-American _enfant terrible_ of British politics was a -pet aversion, did not want him at Kiel. Mr. Churchill's visit might -have resulted in some sort of an Anglo-German naval _modus vivendi_, or -otherwise postponed "the Day." The German War Party's plans, so soon to -materialize, would have been sadly thrown out of gear by such an -untimely event, and von Tirpitz is not the man to brook interference -with his programmes. Had not the German Government, under the -Grand-Admiral's invincible leadership, persistently rejected the hand of -naval peace stretched out by the British Cabinet? Was it not Mr. -Churchill's own proposals to which Berlin had repeatedly returned an -imperious No? Could Germany afford to run the risk of being cajoled, -amid the festive atmosphere of Kiel Week, into concessions which she had -hitherto successively withheld? Von Tirpitz said No again. For years -he had been saying the same thing on the subject of an armaments -understanding with Britain. He said No to Prince Bülow when the fourth -Chancellor suggested the advisability of moderating a German naval -policy certain to lead to conflict with Great Britain. He said No to -Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg when Bülow's successor timorously suggested -from time to time, as he did, the foolhardiness of a programme which -meant, in an historic phrase of Bülow's, "pressure and -counter-pressure." Von Tirpitz had had his way with two German -Chancellors, his nominal superiors, in succession. He never dreamt of -allowing himself to be bowled over now by an amateur sailor from London, -who, if he came to Kiel, would only come armed with a fresh bait -designed to rob the Fatherland of its "future upon the water." - -Until a bare two weeks before the date of the arrival of the British -Squadron in German waters, nothing was publicly known either in London -or Berlin of the projected trip of Mr. Churchill to Kiel. Von Tirpitz -thereupon had resort to the weapon he wields almost as dexterously as -the submarine--publicity--to depopularize the scheme of the misguided -friends of Anglo-German peace. It was not the first time, of course, -that the Grand-Admiral had deliberately crossed the avowed policy of the -German Foreign Office. Von Tirpitz now caused the Churchill-Kiel -enterprise to be "exposed" in the press, in the confident hope that -premature announcement would effectually kill the entire plan. It did. -Tirpitz diplomacy scored again, as it was wont to do. Whereof I speak -in this highly pertinent connection I know, on the authority of one of -von Tirpitz's most subtle and trusted henchmen. To the latter's eyes, I -hope, these reminiscences may some day come. He, at least, will know -that history, not fiction, is recited here. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - THE FIRST ACT - - -"I am simply in my element here!" exclaimed the Kaiser ecstatically to -Vice-Admiral Sir George Warrender, as the twain stood surveying the -glittering array of steel-blue German and British men-of-war facing one -another amicably on the unruffled bosom of Kiel harbor at high noon of -June 25. From my perch of vantage abaft the forward -thirteen-and-one-half-inch guns of His Britannic Majesty's -superdreadnought battleship _King George V_, whither the quartette of -London correspondents had been banished during William II's sojourn in -the flagship, I could "see" him talking on the quarter-deck below, -speaking with those nervous, jerky right-arm gestures which are as -important a part of his staccato conversation as uttered words. - -The Kaiser was inspecting _his_ flagship, for when he boarded us, almost -without notice, in accordance with his irrepressible love of a surprise, -Sir George Warrender's flag came down and the emblem of the German -Emperor's British naval rank, an Admiral of the Fleet, was hoisted atop -all the British vessels in the port. For the nonce the Hohenzollern War -Lord was Britannia's senior in command. Aboard the four great -twenty-three-thousand-ton battleships, _King George V, Audacious, -Centurion_ and _Ajax_ and the three fast "light cruisers" _Birmingham, -Southampton_ and _Nottingham_ there was, for the better part of an hour, -no man to say him nay. I wonder if he, or any of us at Kiel during that -amazing week, let our imaginations run riot and conjure up the vision of -the _Birmingham_ in action against German warships off Heligoland within -ten short weeks, or of the _Audacious_ at the bottom of the Irish Sea, -victim of a German mine, five months later? - -Warrender's squadron had come to Kiel two days before. Another British -squadron was at the same moment paying a similar visit of courtesy and -friendship to the Russian Navy at Riga. The English said then, and -insist now, that their ships were dispatched to greet the Kaiser and the -Czar as sincere messengers of peace and good-will. The Germans, in the -myopic view they have taken of all things since the war began, are -convinced that the White Ensign which floated at Kiel six weeks before -Great Britain and Germany went to war was the emblem of deceit and -hypocrisy, sent there to flap in the Fatherland's guileless face while -Perfidious Albion was crouching for the attack. They say that to-day, -even in presence of the incongruous fact that Serajevo, which applied -the match to the European powder-barrel, wrote its red name across -history's page while the British squadron was still riding at anchor in -Germany's war harbor. - -It was exactly ten years to the week since British warships had last -been to Kiel. I happened to be there on that occasion, too, when King -Edward VII, convoyed by a cruiser squadron, shed the luster of his -vivacious presence on the gayest "Week" Kiel ever knew. Meantime the -Anglo-German political atmosphere had remained too stubbornly clouded to -make an interchange of naval amenities, of all things, either logical or -possible. It was the era in which Germania was preparing her grim -battle-toilet for "the Day"--for all the world to see, as she, justly -enough, always insisted. They were the years in which her new -dreadnought fleet sprang into being. It was the period in which offer -after offer from England for an "understanding" on the question of naval -armaments met nothing but the cold shoulder in Tirpitz-ruled Berlin. -Not until the summer of 1914 had it seemed feasible for British and -German warships to mingle in friendly contact. Doctor von Bethmann -Hollweg quite legitimately accounted the arrangement of the Kiel -love-feast as an achievement of no mean magnitude, viewed in the light -of the ten acrimonious years which preceded it. The War Party, -realizing its harmlessness, and, indeed, recognizing its value for the -party's stealthy purposes, blandly tolerated it. Even Grand-Admiral von -Tirpitz was on hand to do the honors, and no one performs them more -suavely than Germany's fork-bearded sailor-statesman. - -The day after Sir George Warrender's vessels crept majestically out of -the Baltic past Friedrichsort, at the mouth of Kiel harbor, to be -welcomed by twenty-one German guns from shore batteries, the symptomatic -event of the "Week" was enacted--the formal opening of the reconstructed -Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. I place that day, June 24, not far behind the -sanguinary 28th of June, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand fell, in its -direct relationship to the outbreak of the war. When the giant locks of -Holtenau swung free, ready henceforth for the passage of William II's -greatest warships, the moment of Germany's up-to-the-minute preparedness -for Armageddon was signalized. - -For ten plodding years tens of thousands of hands had been at work -converting the waterway which links Baltic Germany with North Sea -Germany (Kiel with Wilhelmshaven) into a channel wide and deep enough -for navigation by battleships of the largest bulk. After an expenditure -of more than fifty million dollars the canal, dedicated with pomp and -ceremony in 1892 to the peaceful requirements of European shipping, was -now become a war canal, pure and simple, raised to the war dimension and -destined, as the German War Party knew, to play the role for which it -was rebuilt almost before its newly-banked stone sides had settled in -their foundations. When I watched proud William II, standing solemn and -statue-like on the bridge of his Imperial yacht _Hohenzollern_, as her -gleaming golden bow broke through the black-white-red strand of ribbon -stretched across the locks, I recall distinctly an invincible feeling -that I was witness of an historic moment. Germany's army, I said to -myself, had long been ready. Now her fleet was ready, too. With an -inland avenue of safe retreat, invulnerably fortified at either end, -Teuton sea strategists had always insisted that the Fatherland's naval -position would be well-nigh impregnable. That hour had arrived. There -was the Kaiser, before my very eyes, leading the way through the War -Canal for his twenty-seven-thousand-five-hundred-ton battleships and -battle cruisers, and even for his thirty-five-thousand-ton or -fifty-thousand-ton creations of some later day, for the War Canal was -made over for to-morrow, as well as for to-day. The German war machine -tightened up the last bolt when William of Hohenzollern emerged from -Holtenau locks into the harbor of Kiel, spectacular symbol of the fact -that German ironclads of any dimensions were now able to sally back and -forth from the Baltic to the North Sea and hide for a year, as the world -has meantime seen, even from the Mistress of the Seas. No wonder a -British bluejacket, forming the link of an endless chain of his fellows -dressing ship round the rail of the _Centurion_ in honor of the War -Lord, whispered audibly to a mate, as the _Hohenzollern_ steamed down -the line to her anchorage, "Say, Bill, don't he look jest like Gawd!" -Perhaps the Divinely-Anointed felt that way, too. - -When the Kaiser had left the _King George V_ after a politely cursory -"inspection"--the only real "understanding" effected between England and -Germany at Kiel was a tacit agreement on the part of officers and men to -do no amateur spying in one another's ships--Sir George Warrender -summoned us from the turret and told us some details of the All-Highest -visitation. The Emperor had been "delighted to make his first call in a -British dreadnought aboard so magnificent a specimen as the _King George -V_" (she and her sisters being at the time the most powerful battleships -flying the Union Jack). He wanted the Vice-Admiral to assure the -British Government what pleasure it had done the German Navy "in sending -these fine ships to Kiel." He hoped nothing was being left undone to -"complete the English sailors' happiness" in German waters. That -extorted from Sir George Warrender the exclamation that German -hospitality, like all else Teutonic, was seemingly thoroughness -personified, for somebody had even been thoughtful enough to lay a -submarine telephone cable from the Seebade-Anstalt Hotel to the -Vice-Admiral's flagship, so that Lady Maude Warrender might talk from -her apartments on shore directly to her husband's quarters afloat. - -"Yes," continued the Kaiser, who is a genial conversationalist and -_raconteur_, "I am in my element in surroundings like these. I love the -sea. I like to go to launchings of ships. I am passionately fond of -yachting. You must sail with me to-morrow, Admiral, in my newest -_Meteor_, the fifth of the name. I race only with German crews now. -Time was when I had to have British skippers and British sailors. You -see, my aim is to breed a race of German yachtsmen. As fast as I've -trained a good crew in the _Meteor_, I let it go to the new owner of the -boat. I am the loser by that system, but I have the satisfaction of -knowing that I am promoting a good cause." The confab was approaching -its end. "Oh, Admiral, before I forget, how is Lady ........ and the -Duchess of ........? I know so many of your handsome Englishwomen." - -Sir George Warrender's captains and the officers of the flagship were -now grouped around him for a farewell salute to their Imperial senior -officer. The Kaiser spied the _King George V's_ chaplain, and leaning -over to him inquired, gaily, "Chaplain, is there any swearing in this -ship?" "Oh, never, Your Majesty, never any swearing in a British -dreadnought!" The War Lord liked that, for we who had been in the -Olympian heights for'd remembered his laughing aloud at this veracious -tribute to Jack Tar's world-famed purity of diction. - -Kiel Week thenceforward was an endless round of Anglo-German -pleasantries. A Zeppelin, harbinger of coming events, hovered over the -British squadron at intervals, her crew wagging cheery greetings to the -ships while acquainting themselves at close range with the looks of -English dreadnoughts from the sky. British sailormen paid fraternal -visits to German dreadnoughts and German sailormen returned their calls. -The crew of the _Ajax_ gave a music-hall smoker in honor of the crew of -the big battle-cruiser _Seydlitz_, the Teuton tars being no little -awestruck by the complacency with which two heavyweight British boxers -pummeled each other a sea-green for six rounds and then smilingly shook -hands when it was all over. Germans never punch one another except in -gory hate, and they seldom fight with their fists. The Kaiser was host -nightly at splendid State dinners in the _Hohenzollern_ and Vice-Admiral -Warrender returned the fire with state banquets aboard the _King George -V_. The atmosphere was fairly thick with brotherly love. It was not so -much as ruffled even when the octogenarian Earl of Brassey, who wards -off rheumatism by an early morning pull in his row-boat, was arrested by -a German harbor-policeman as an "English spy" for approaching the -forbidden waters of Kiel dockyard. German diplomacy was typically -represented by Lord Brassey's zealous captor, for the master of the -famous _Sunbeam_ brought that venerable craft to Kiel to demonstrate -that Englishmen of his class sincerely favored peace, and, if possible, -friendship with Germany. Wilhelmstrasse tact was exemplified again -when, by way of apology to Lord Brassey, the Kiel police explained that -there was, of course, no intention of charging him with espionage. The -policeman who arrested him merely thought he was nabbing a smuggler! At -dinner that night in the _Hohenzollern_, the Kaiser chuckled jovially at -Lord Brassey's expense. England's greatest living marine historian -stole away from Kiel with the _Sunbeam_ in the gray dawn of the next -day, with new ideas of German courtesy to the stranger within the gate. -He had intended to stay longer. - -[Illustration: A naval Zeppelin cruising over the British squadron at -Kiel.] - -Of all the billing and cooing at Kiel there is photographed most -indelibly on my memory the glorious jamboree of the sailors of the -British and German squadrons in the big assembly hall at the Imperial -dockyard on the Saturday night of the "Week." There were free beer, -free tobacco, free provender for everybody, in typical German plenty. A -ship's band blared rag-time and horn-pipes all night long. Only the -supply of Kiel girls fell short of the demand, but that only made -merrier fun for the bluejackets, who, lacking fair partners, danced with -one another, and when the hour had become really hilarious, they tripped -across the floor, when they were not rolling over it, embracing in -threes, bunny-hugging, grotesquely tangoing, turkey-trotting and -fish-walking more joyously than men ever reveled before. - -There, I thought, was Anglo-German friendship in being--not an ideal, -but an actuality. I am sure the British and German tars at Kiel that -boisterous Saturday night which melted into the Sunday of Serajevo -little dreamt that when next they would be locked in one another's arms, -it would be at grips for life or death. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - THE PLOT DEVELOPS - - -Von G. is a Junker. He is also Germany's ablest special correspondent. -A Junker, let the uninitiated understand, is a Prussian land baron, or -one of his descendants, who considers dominion over the earth and all -its worms his by Divine Right. If, like von G., a Junker is an army -officer besides, active or _ausser Dienst_, and had a grandfather who -belonged to Moltke's headquarters in 1870-71, he is the superlatively -real thing. So, as my mission in Germany was study of the Fatherland in -its characteristic ramifications, I always felt myself richly favored by -the friendship and professional comradeship of von G. He was Junkerism -incarnate. Several years' residence in the United States had signally -failed to corrode von G.'s Junker instincts. Indeed, it intensified -them, for he was ever after a confirmed believer in the ignominious -failure of Democracy. It was he who popularized "Dollarica" as a German -nickname for "God's country." - -Von G. and I roomed together at Kiel, sharing apartments and a bath in -the harbormaster's flat above the Imperial Yacht Club postoffice, whose -two stories of brick and stucco serve as "annex" to the always -overcrowded and palatial Krupp hotel, the Seebade-Anstalt, at the other -end of the flowered club grounds. That bath, which I mention in no -spirit of ablutionary arrogance, has to do with the story of von G., for -it was to bring me on a day destined to be historic in violent conflict -with Junkerism. Von G. and I regulated the bath situation at Kiel by -leaving word on our landlady's slate the night before which of us would -bathe first next morning and at what hour. The bath happened to adjoin -my sleeping quarters and von G. could not reach it except by crossing my -bedroom, which he always entered without knocking. On Sunday, June 28, -fateful day, von G. was timed to bathe at eight A.M., I at nine--so read -the schedule inscribed by our respective hands on the good _Frau -Hafenmcistcr's_ tablet. At seven-thirty I was roused from my feathered -slumbers by her soft footsteps--the softest steps of German -harbormasters' wives are quite audible--as she trundled across the room -to arrange Herr von G.'s eight o'clock dip. Junkers are punctual -people, but that morning mine was late. Eight, eight-thirty, -eighty-forty-five passed, and there was no sign of him. When nine -o'clock came, I thought I might reasonably conclude, in my rude, -inconsiderate American way, that von G. had overslept or postponed his -bath, so I made for the tub at the hour I had intended to. I was just -stepping one foot into it when--it was nine-ten now--von G., rubbing his -eyes, bolted in. - -"What do you mean by taking my bath?" he yelled at me. "That's some of -your damned American impudence!" - -Whereupon, imperturbably pouring the rest of me into the bath, I -ventured to suggest to Field-Marshal von G., that if he would drop the -barrack-yard tone and remember that I was neither a _Dachshund_ nor a -Pomeranian recruit, I would deign to hold converse on the point under -debate. I am not sure I spoke as calmly as that sounds, for to gain a -conversational lap on a German you must outshout him. At any rate, von -G., abandoning abuse, stalked whimperingly from the room, fired some -rearguard shrapnel about "just like an American's 'nerve'," and bathed -later in the day. - -I did not see him again until about five o'clock that afternoon. He -bolted into my room this time, too, but in excitement, not anger. - -"The Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife have been assassinated," he -exclaimed. - -"Good God!" I rejoined, stupefied. - -"It's a good thing," said von G. quietly. - -For many days and nights I wondered what the Junker meant. I think I -know now. He meant that the War Party (of which he was a very potent -and zealous member) had at length found a pretext for forcing upon -Europe the struggle for which the German War Lords regarded themselves -vastly more ready than any possible combination of foes. The first year -of the war has amply demonstrated the accuracy of their calculations. -Germany's triumphs in the opening twelvemonth of Armageddon were the -triumphs of the superlatively prepared. If Serajevo had not come along -when it did--with the German military establishment just built up to a -peace-footing of nearly one million officers and men and re-armed at a -cost of two hundred and fifty million dollars; with von Tirpitz's Fleet -at the acme of its efficiency; with the Kiel Canal reconstructed for the -passage of super-dreadnought ironclads--Germany's readiness for war -might have been fatally inferior to that of her enemies-to-be. The -Fatherland was ready, armed to the teeth, as nation never was before. -The psychological moment had dawned. - -This was the reassuring state of affairs at home. What did the War Party -see when it put its mailed hand to the vizor and looked abroad, across -to England, west over the Rhine to France, and toward Russia? It saw -Great Britain on what truly enough looked to most of the world like the -brink of revolution in Ireland. It saw a France, of which a great -Senator had only a few days before said that her forts were defective, -her guns short of ammunition and her army lacking in even such -rudimentary war sinews as sufficient boots for the troops. It saw a -Russia stirred by industrial strife which seemed to need only the threat -of grave foreign complications to inflame her always rebellious -proletariat into revolt. Serajevo had all the earmarks of providential -timeliness. - -"It's a good thing," said the sententious von G. - -The "trippers" from Hamburg and nearer-by points in Schleswig-Holstein, -whom the Sunday of Kiel Week attracts by the thousand, were far more -stunned than von G. by the news from Bosnia, which put so tragic an end -to their seaside holiday. The esplanade, which had been throbbing with -bustle and glittering with color, did not know at first why all the -ships in the harbor, British as well as German, had suddenly lowered -their pennants to half-mast, or why the Austrian royal standard had -suddenly broken out, also at the mourning altitude. The Kaiser was -racing in the Baltic. "Old Franz Josef," some said, "has died. He's -been going for many a day." Presently the truth percolated through the -awestruck crowds. The sleek white naval dispatch-boat _Sleipner_ tore -through the Bay, Baltic-bound. She carries news to William II when he -governs Germany from the quarter-deck of the _Hohenzollern_. _Sleipner_ -dodged eel-like, through the lines of British and German men-of-war, -ocean liners, pleasure-craft and racing-yachts anchored here, there and -everywhere. In fifteen minutes she was alongside the Emperor's fleet -schooner, _Meteor V_, which had broken off her race on receipt of -wireless tidings of the Archducal couple's murderous fate. The -_Hohenzollern_ had already "wirelessed" for the fastest torpedo-boat in -port to fetch the Kaiser and his staff off the _Meteor_, and the -destroyer and _Sleipner_ snorted up, foam-bespattered, almost -simultaneously. The Emperor clambered into the torpedo-boat and started -for the harbor. - -It was the face of a William II, blanched ashen-gray, which turned from -the bridge of the destroyer to acknowledge, in solemn gravity, the -salutes of the officers and crew of the British flagship, as the -Kaiser's craft raced past the _King George V_. Always stern of mien, -the Emperor now looked severity personified. His staff stood apart. He -seemed to wish to be alone, absolutely, with the overwhelming thoughts -of the moment. Three minutes later, and he stepped aboard the -_Hohenzollern_. Now another pennant showed at the mainmast of the -Imperial yacht--the blue and yellow signal flag which means: "His -Majesty is aboard, but preoccupied." I wonder if posterity will ever -know what monumental reflections flitted through the Kaiser's mind in -that first hour after Serajevo? Did he, like von G., think it was "a -good thing," too? I suppose the first stars and stripes to be -half-masted anywhere in the world that dread sundown were those which -drooped from the stern of _Utowana_, Mr. Allison Vincent Armour's -steam-yacht, anchored in the Bay off Kiel Naval Academy. A puffing -little launch took me out to the _Utowana_ as soon as I had gathered -some coherent facts, which I wanted to present to Mr. Armour and his -guests, American Ambassador and Mrs. James W. Gerard, of Berlin, who had -motored to Kiel the day before. Mrs. Gerard's sister, Countess Sigray, -is the wife of a Hungarian nobleman, and the Ambassador's wife, if my -memory serves me correctly, once told me of her sister's acquaintance -with both of the assassinated Royalties. We Americans discussed the -immediate consequences of the day's event--how the Kaiser would take it, -how it would affect poor old Emperor Francis Joseph. William II and -Admiral von Tirpitz had been the Archduke's guests at Konopischt in -Bohemia only a few weeks before. The Kaiser and the future ruler of -Austria-Hungary had become great friends. They were not always that. -There had been a good deal of the William II in Franz Ferdinand himself. -People often said it was a case of Greek meet Greek, and that two such -insistent personalities were inevitably bound to clash. Others said that -the Archduke, inspired by his brilliantly clever consort, always -insisted that German overlordship in Vienna would cease when he came to -the throne. Still others knew that despite antipathies and antagonisms, -the two men had at length come to be genuinely fond of each other, and -that their ideas and ideals for the greater glory of Germanic Europe -coincided. - -These things we chatted and canvassed, irresponsibly, on _Utowana's_ -immaculate deck. All of us were persuaded of the imminency of a crisis -in Austrian-Serbian relations in consequence of Princip's crime. But I -am quite sure not a soul of us held himself capable of imagining that, -because of that remote felony, Great Britain and Germany would be at war -five weeks later. Beyond us spread the peaceful panorama of British and -German war-craft, anchored side by side, and the thought would have -perished at birth. - -Returned to the terrace of the Seebade-Anstalt, one found the atmosphere -heavily charged with suppressed excitement. Immaculately-groomed young -diplomats, down from Berlin for the Sunday, were twirling their -walking-sticks and yellow gloves which were not, after all, to accompany -them to Grand-Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia's garden-party. That, -like everything else connected with Kiel Week, had suddenly been called -off. - -A party of Americans flocked together at the entrance to the hotel to -exchange low-spoken views on the all-pervading topic. There was big -Lieutenant-Commander Walter R. Gherardi, our wide-awake Berlin Naval -Attaché, resplendent in gala gold-braided uniform, and Mrs. Gherardi, -who had motored me around the environs of Kiel that morning; Albert -Billings Ruddock, Third Secretary of the Embassy, and his pretty and -clever wife; and Lanier Winslow, Ambassador Gerard's private secretary, -his effervescent good nature repressed for the first time I ever -remembered observing it in that unbecoming and unnatural condition. -Secretary Ruddock's father, Mr. Charles H. Ruddock, of New York, -completed the group. - -I met Mr. Ruddock, Sr., six months later in New York. "Do you remember -what you told me that afternoon at Kiel, when we were discussing -Serajevo?" he asked. I pleaded a lapse of recollection. "You said," he -reminded me, "'this means war.'" - -The aspect of Kiel became in the twinkling of an eye as funereal as -Serajevo and Vienna themselves must have been in that blood-bespattered -hour. Bands stopped playing, flags not lowered to half-mast were hauled -down altogether, and beer-gardens emptied. "Hohenzollern weather," -Teuton synonym for invincible sunshine, vanished in keeping with the -drooping spirits of everybody and everything, and bleak thunder-showers -intermingled with flashes of heat-lightning to complete the _mise en -scène_. A week of gaiety unsurpassed evaporated into gloom and -foreboding. - -For myself it had been a week crowded with great recollections. Special -correspondents telegraphing to influential foreign newspapers, -particularly if they were English and American newspapers, were always -_persona gratissima_ with German dignitaries, even of the blood royal. -The group of us on duty at what, alas! was to be the last Kiel Week, at -least of the old sort, for many a year, were the recipients, as usual, -of that scientific hospitality which foreign newspapermen always receive -at German official hands. Before we were at Kiel twenty-four hours we -were deluged with invitations to garden-parties at the Commanding -Admiral's, to _soirees_ innumerable ashore and afloat, to luncheons at -the Town Hall, to the grand balls at the Naval Academy, and to functions -of lesser magnitude for the bluejackets. Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz had -left his card at my lodgings and so had Admiral von Rebeur-Paschwitz, -the Chief of Staff of the Baltic Station, who will be pleasantly -remembered by friends of Washington days when he was German Naval -Attaché there. Captain Lohlein, the courteous chief of the Press Bureau -of the Navy Department at Berlin, had equipped me with credentials which -practically made me a freeman of Kiel harbor for the time being. In no -single direction was effort lacking, on the part of the authorities who -have the most practical conception of any Government in the world of the -value of advertising, to enable special correspondents at Kiel to -practise their profession comfortably and successfully. I must not -forget to mention the visit paid me by Baron von Stumm, chief of the -Anglo-American division of the German Foreign Office; for Stumm's -opinion of me underwent a kaleidoscopic and mysterious change a few -weeks later. Treasured conspicuously in my memories of Kiel, too, will -long remain the call I received from Herr Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach's -private secretary, and the message he brought me from the Master of -Essen. It seems less cryptic to me now than then. I sought an -interview from the Cannon Queen's consort about the visit he and his -staff of experts had just paid to the great arsenals and dockyards of -Great Britain. - -"Herr Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach presents his compliments," said the -secretary, "and asks me to say how much he regrets he can not grant an -interview, as the matters which took him to England are not such as he -cares to discuss in public." - -I wonder how many American newspaper readers, in the hurly-burly of the -fast-marching events which preceded and ushered in the war, ever knew of -the little army of eminent and expert "investigators" who honored -England with their company on the very threshold of hostilities? June -saw the presence in London, ostensibly for "the season," of Herr Krupp -von Bohlen und Halbach, accompanied not only by his plutocratic wife, -but by his chief technical expert, Doctor Ehrensberger of Essen, an -old-time friend of American steel men like Mr. Schwab and ex-Ambassador -Leishman, and by Herr von Bülow, a kinsman of the ex-Imperial -Chancellor, who was the Krupp general representative in England. With a -_naïveté_ which Britons themselves now regard almost incomprehensible, -the Krupp party was shown over practically all of England's greatest -weapons-of-war works at Birkenhead, Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow, -Newcastle-on-Tyne and Sheffield. They saw the world-famed plants of -Firth, Cammell-Laird, Vickers-Maxim, Brown, Armstrong-Whitworth and -Hadfield. Not with the eyes of Cook tourists, but with the practised -gaze of specialists, they were privileged to look upon sights which must -have sent them away with a vivid, up-to-date and accurate impression of -Britain's capabilities in the all-vital realm of production of war -materials for both army and navy. It was from this personally conducted -junket through the zone of British war industry that Herr Krupp von -Bohlen und Halbach returned--not to Essen, but to Kiel (where he has his -summer home) and to the Kaiser and von Tirpitz. It was to them his -report was made. I think I understand better now why he could not see -his way to letting me tell the British public what he saw and learned in -England. I was guileless when I sought the interview. Let this be my -apology to Herr Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach for attempting to penetrate -into matters obviously not fit "to discuss in public." - -During July England entertained three other important German emissaries, -each a specialist, as befitted the country of his origin and the object -of his mission. Doctor Dernburg came over. He spent ten strenuous days -"in touch" with financial and economic circles and subjects. No man -could be relied upon to bring back to Berlin a shrewder estimate of the -British commercial situation. A few days later Herr Ballin, the German -shipping king, crossed the channel. I recall telegraphing a Berlin -newspaper notice which explained that the astute managing director of -the Hamburg-American line went to England to "look into the question of -fuel-oil supplies." Herr Ballin, like Doctor Dernburg, also kept "in -touch" with the British circles most important and interesting to -himself and the Fatherland. He must have dabbled in high politics a -bit, too, for only the other day Lord Haldane revealed that he arranged -for Herr Ballin to "meet a few friends" at his lordship's hospitable -home at Queen Anne's Gate. Germans always felt a proprietary right to -seek the hospitality of the Scotch statesman who acknowledged that his -spiritual domicile was in the Fatherland. - -Then, finally, came another German, far more august than Krupp von -Bohlen und Halbach, Dernburg and Ballin--Grand-Admiral Prince Henry of -Prussia. His visit fell within a week of Germany's declaration of war -against France and Russia. The Prince, who enjoyed many warm -friendships in England and visited the country at frequent intervals, -also spent a busy week in London. He saw the King, called on with -Prince Louis of Battenberg, the then First Sea Lord, and paid his -respects to Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. -Englishmen only conjecture how he put in the rest of his time. - -Perhaps an episode in the trial of Karl Lody, the German naval spy who -was executed at the Tower of London on November 6, has its place in the -unrecorded history of Prince Henry of Prussia's epochal visit to the -British Isles. Lody confessed to his military judges at Middlesex -Guildhall that he received his orders to report on British naval -preparations from "a distinguished personage." - -"Give us his name," commanded Lord Cheylesmore, presiding officer of the -court. - -"I would rather not tell it in open court," pleaded the prisoner, whom -Scotland Yard, the day before, had asked me to look at, with a view to -possible identification with certain Berlin affiliations. - -"I will write his name on a piece of paper for the court's confidential -information," Lody added. His request was granted. - -When we were officially notified that the Kaiser would proceed next -morning by special train to Berlin, we made our own preparations to -depart. The British squadron had still a day and a half of its -scheduled visit to complete, and Vice-Admiral Warrender told us he would -remain accordingly. The German Admiralty had extended him the -hospitality of the new War Canal for the cruise of his fleet into the -North Sea, but he decided to send only the light cruisers by that route -and take his battleships home, as they had come, by the roundabout route -of the Baltic. - -On Monday noon, June 29, I went back to Berlin, to live through five -weeks of finishing touches for the grand world blood-bath. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - THE STAGE MANAGERS - - -Armageddon was plotted, prepared for and precipitated by the German War -Party. It was not the work of the German people. What is the "War -Party"? Let me begin by explaining what it is _not_. It is not a party -in the sense of President Wilson's organization or Colonel Roosevelt's -Bull Moosers. It maintains no permanent headquarters or National -Committee, and holds no conventions. The only barbecue it ever -organized is the one which plunged the world into gore and tears in -August, 1914, though its attempts to drench Europe with blood are -decade-old. You would search the German city directories in vain for -the War Party's address or telephone number. No German would ever -acknowledge that he belonged to Europe's largest Black Hand league. You -could, indeed, hardly find anybody in Germany willing even to -acknowledge that the War Party even existed. Yet, unseen and sinister, -its grip was fastened so heavily upon the machinery of State that when -it deemed the moment for its sanguinary purposes at length ripe, the War -Party was able to tear the whole nation from its peaceful pursuits and -fling it, armed to the teeth, against a Europe so flagrantly unready -that more than a year of strife finds Germany not only unbeaten but at a -zenith of fighting efficiency which her foes have only begun to -approach. - -When the German War Party pressed the button for the Great Massacre, the -Fatherland had, roundly, sixty-seven million five hundred thousand -inhabitants within its thriving walls. At a liberal estimate, no one -can ever convince me that more than one million five hundred thousand -Germans really wanted war. _They_ were the "War Party." Sixty-six -millions of the Kaiser's subjects, immersed in the most abundant -prosperity any European country of modern times had been vouchsafed, -longed only for the continuance of the conditions which had brought -about this state of unparalleled national weal. I do not believe that -William II, deep down in his heart, craved for war. I can vouch for the -literal accuracy of a hitherto unrecorded piece of ante-bellum history -which bears out my doubts of the Kaiser's immediate responsibility for -the war, though it does not acquit him of supine acquiescence in, and to -that extent abetting, the War Party's plot. - -On the afternoon of Saturday, August 1, 1914, the wife of -Lieutenant-General Helmuth von Moltke, then Chief of the Great German -General Staff, paid a visit to a certain home in Berlin, which shall be -nameless. The _Frau Generalstabschef_ was in a state of obvious mental -excitement. - -"_Ach_, what a day I've been through, _Kinder_!" she began. "My husband -came home just before I left. Dog-tired, he threw himself on to the -couch, a total wreck, explaining to me that he had finally accomplished -the three days' hardest work he had ever done in his whole life--he had -helped to induce the Kaiser to sign the mobilization order!" - -There is the evidence, disclosed in the homeliest, yet the most direct, -fashion, of the German War Party's unescapable culpability for the -supreme crime against humanity. The "sword" had, indeed, been "forced" -into the Kaiser's hand. This is no brief for the Kaiser's innocence. -No man did more than William II himself, during twenty-six years of -explosive reign, to stimulate the military clique in the belief that -when the dread hour came the Supreme War Lord would be "with my Army." -Yet German officers, in those occasional moments when conviviality bred -loquacity, were fond of averring, as more than one of them has averred -to me, that "the Kaiser lacked the moral courage to sign a mobilization -order." _Die Post_, a leading War Party organ, said as much during the -Morocco imbroglio in 1911. Perhaps that is why General von Moltke had -to force the pen, which for the nonce was mightier than the sword, into -the reluctant hand of William II. - -The Kaiser was constitutionally addicted to swaggering war talk, but, in -my judgment, he preferred the bark to the bite. He likes his job. Like -our Roosevelt, he has a "perfectly corking time" wielding the scepter. -Raised in the belief that the Hohenzollerns were divinely appointed to -their Royal estate, William II dearly loves his trade. He does not want -to lose his throne. In peace there was little danger of its ever -slipping from under him, thanks to a Socialist "movement" which was -noisy but never really menacing. In war Hohenzollern rule is in -perpetual peril. Hostile armies, if they ever battered their way to -Potsdam, would almost surely wreck the dynasty, even if the mob had not -already saved them that trouble. The Kaiser, sagacious like every man -when his livelihood is at stake, always had these dread eventualities in -mind. His personal interests, the fortunes of his House, all lay along -the path of manifest safety--peace. Meantime his concessions to the War -Party were generous and frequent. He rattled the saber on its demand. -He donned his "shining armor" at Austria's side when the Germanic Powers -coerced Russia into recognition of the Bosnian annexation in 1909. He -sent the _Panther_ to Agadir harbor in 1911 because the War Party howled -for "deeds" in Morocco. It hoped that history in Northwestern Africa -would repeat itself--that the Triple Entente would yield to German bluff -as it yielded in Southeastern Europe two years previous. It did not, -and it was then that the German War Party swore a solemn vow of "Never -Again!" The days of the Kaiser who merely threatened war were numbered. -Next time the sword would be "forced" into his hand. "Before God and -history my conscience is clear. _I did not will this war_. One year -has elapsed since I was _obliged_ to call the German people to arms." -Thus William of Hohenzollern's manifesto to his people from Main -Headquarters on the first anniversary of the war, August 1, 1915. -Herewith I place _Frau Generalstabschef_ von Moltke on the stand as -chief witness in the Kaiser's defense. - -I have said that sixty-six million Germans wanted peace and one million -five hundred thousand demanded war. But in Germany _minority_ rules. -It rules supreme when the issue is war or peace, and when the German War -Party _insisted_ upon deeds instead of speeches the nation, Kaiser and -all, Reichstag and Socialist, Prince and peasant, had but one -alternative--to yield. In July, 1914, the War Party imperiously asked -for war, and war ensued. That is the ineffaceable long and short of -Armageddon. I am persuaded that William II on July 31 was confronted -with something strangely like an abrupt alternative of mobilization or -abdication. - -Assertions of the German people's consecration to peace may strike the -reader as incongruous in face of the magnificent unanimity with which -the entire Fatherland has waged and is still waging the war. But such a -view leaves wholly out of account the most prodigious and amazing of all -the German War Party's preparations--the skilful manipulation of public -opinion for "the Day." In ten brief days--those fateful hours between -July 23, when Austria launched her brutal ultimatum at Serbia, and -August 1, when mobilization of the German Army and Navy made a European -conflagration a certainty--Germany's vast peace majority, by deception -which I shall outline in a subsequent chapter, was converted into a -multitudinous mob mad for war. - -I count the merely material preparations of the War Party--the steady -expansion of Krupps, the development of the Fleet, the invention of the -forty-two centimeter gun, the vast secret storage of arms and -ammunition, the 1913 increase of the Army, the accumulation of a -war-chest of gold, the stealthy organization of every conceivable -instrument and resource of war down to details too minute for the -ordinary mind to grasp; all these, I count as nothing compared to the -hypnotization of the German national mind extending over many years. - -In England and America the name of Bernhardi was on everybody's lips as -the archpriest of the war. I doubt if one man in ten thousand in Germany -ever heard of Bernhardi before August, 1914. He became an international -personality mainly through the graces of foreign newspaper -correspondents in Berlin, who, recognizing his book, _Germany's Next -War_, as classic proclamation of the War Party's designs on the world, -dignified it with commensurate attention, not because of its authorship, -but because of its innate _authoritativeness_. The result was the -translation of _Germany's Next War_ into the English language, and -subsequently, I suppose, into every other civilized language in the -world. Perhaps I am myself to some extent responsible for Bernhardi's -vogue in the United States. He was going to cross our country en route -back to Europe from the Far East, and wrote to ask me to suggest to him -the name of an American translator and publisher for his books. -Bernhardi, a mere retired general of cavalry with a gift for incisive -writing, woke up to find himself famous. But nothing could be more -beyond the mark than to imagine that he was the pioneer of German -war-aggression. He was merely its most plain-spoken prophet. The way -had been blazed for decades before he appeared upon the scene. After -Bernhardi had been successfully launched on the bookshelves of the -world, the German War Party took him up, and it was not long before _Die -Post_, the _Deutsche Tageszeitung_ and other organs of blood-and-iron -were able to make "the highly gratifying" announcement that Bernhardi's -manual had been compressed into a fifty-pfennig popular edition, so that -the German masses might be educated in the inspiring doctrine of -manifest Teuton destiny, as Bernhardi so unblushingly set it forth. - -The German War Party's certificate of incorporation is dated Versailles, -January 18, 1871, when, on the one hundred and seventieth anniversary of -the creation of the Kingdom of Prussia, Bismarck and Moltke crowned -victorious William I of Prussia German Emperor. Cradled in Prussianism, -the German War Party has always been Prussian, rather than German. To -the credit of Bavaria, Saxony, Baden and Wurttemberg be that forever -remembered. Denmark and Austria, during the seven years preceding -Versailles, had had their lessons. Now France lay prostrate, despoiled -of her fairest provinces and financially bled white, as the conqueror -imagined. From that moment the Prussian head began swelling with -invincible self-esteem, to emerge in the succeeding generation in an -insensate and megalomaniac conviction that to the race which had -accomplished what the Germans had achieved nothing was impossible. -"World Power"--Rule or Ruin--became the national slogan. - -In the reconstruction years following the 1870-71 campaign non-military -Germany was bent on laying the foundations of Teuton industrial -greatness. The project was vouchsafed no support from the military -hotspurs who, within ten years of Sedan and Paris, did their utmost to -force Bismarck into giving humbled France a fresh drubbing, that her -power to rise from the dust might be crushed for all time. Then the -Prussian War Party demanded that the scalp of Russia be added to its -insatiable belt. Bismarck propitiated the Bernhardis of that day by -thundering in the Reichstag that "We Germans fear God, and nothing else -in this world!" When the Chancellor of Iron burnt that piece of bombast -into the German soul in 1887, a year before William the Speechmaker was -enthroned, he wrote the German War Party's "platform." Since then it -has had many planks added to it, but all of them have rested squarely -and firmly on the concrete upon which they were imbedded, viz., that -_Furor Teutonicus_ was a power which, when it went forth to slay and -conquer, was invincible because it was filled with naught but the fear -of God. _Nouveau riche_ Germany, with France's one billion two hundred -and fifty million dollars of gold indemnity in its pocket, ceased to be -the Fatherland of homely virtues, celebrated in song and story, and -became the plethoric Fatherland, drunk with power and wealth won by -arms, the Fatherland which was to adopt the gospel of political -brutality as a new national _Leit-motif_. "We, not the Jews, are God's -chosen people. Our military prowess and our intellectual superiority -make German _Weltmacht_ manifest destiny. Full steam ahead!" Thus it -was, a generation ago, that the German War Party was launched on its mad -career. - -During the war the English-reading world has heard much of Treitschke -and Nietzsche, just as it has had its ears dinned full of Bernhardi. -Germans with scars on their faces and other marks of a college -education--a gentry numbering several millions--know and venerate their -Treitschke and Nietzsche, and to their pernicious dogma is due in large -degree the war lust of so-called cultured Germany; yet to the German -masses these renowned apostles of Might is Right are little more than -names. Of far more importance for the purpose of tracing the origin of -the Armageddon are the living captains of the "War Party," not its -deceased intellectual sponsors. Historians of the present era will gain -the really illuminating perspective by relegating Nietzsche, "that -half-inspired, half-crazy poet-philosopher," and Treitschke, his more -modern kindred spirit, to the dead past and elevating Tirpitz and the -Crown Prince, Koester of the German Navy League and Keim of the German -Army League to their places. It is men like them, politicians like -Heydebrand, literary firebrands like Reventlow and Frobenius, and -press-pensioners like Hammann who were the real pioneers of Armageddon. -These are names with which the English-reading world, enchanted by the -myopic prominence given to the writings of Nietzsche, Treitschke and -Bernhardi, are not familiar. But they are the real stage managers of -the war tragedy, and it is with them I shall deal before narrating the -culminating effects of their devilry. - -Prince Bülow, fourth Imperial Chancellor and most urbane of statesmen, -will live in German history as a man who resembled Bismarck in but one -important particular--the gift of phrase-making. Bismarck's aphorisms -are quoted by Germans with the awesome regard in which Anglo-Saxons cite -Shakespeare. Bülow's name will be enshrined in Teuton memory for an -epigram which had as direct a psychic influence on the German War -Party's demand for the present war as any other one thing said, written -or done in Germany in the last fifteen years. When he proclaimed that -Germany demanded her "place in the sun," he flung into the fire fat -which was to go sizzling down the age. It was worth its weight in -precious gems to the blood-and-iron brigade. As Bismarck's blasphemous -bluster in 1887 gave the War Party of that day its fillip, Bülow in 1907 -supplied the spurred and helmeted zealots of his era with a flamboyancy -no less vicious. They snatched it up with alacrity, and, being Germans, -proceeded to exploit it with masterly efficiency and deadly -thoroughness. A "place in the sun" forthwith inspired an entirely new -German literature. It became the spiritual mother of this war. - -Like all the War Party's dogma, the "place in the sun" doctrine is sheer -cant. Germany has occupied an increasingly expansive "place in the sun" -for forty-four years without interruption. In 1913, Doctor Karl -Helfferich, a director of the Deutsche Bank, who is now Secretary of the -Imperial Treasury, in a pamphlet spread broadcast throughout the world, -thus summarized Germany's "place in the sun": - -"The German National Income amounts today to ten thousand seven hundred -fifty million dollars annually as against from five thousand seven -hundred fifty to six thousand two hundred fifty million dollars in 1895. -The annual increase in wealth is about two thousand five hundred million -dollars, as against a sum of from one thousand one hundred twenty-five -to one thousand two hundred fifty million dollars fifteen years ago. - -"The wealth of the German people amounts today to more than seventy-five -thousand million dollars, as against about fifty thousand million -dollars toward the middle of the nineties. These solid figures -summarize, expressed in money, the result of the enormous economic labor -which Germany has achieved during the reign of our present Emperor." - -Doctor Helfferich continued the story of the incessant widening of the -Fatherland's "place in the sun." He told of the steady rise of the -population at the rate of eight hundred thousand a year; of the -development of German industry at so miraculous a pace that while -Germany in the middle eighties was losing emigrated citizens at the rate -of one hundred thirty-five thousand a year, the total had sunk in 1912 -to eighteen thousand five hundred, and that Germany had become, many -years before that date, an _importer_ of men, instead of an exporter; -that the net tonnage of the German mercantile fleet increased from -1,240,182 in 1888 to 3,153,724 in 1913; that German imports and exports, -during the rich years immediately prior to 1910, increased from one -thousand five hundred million dollars to nearly four thousand million -dollars, and in 1912 exceeded five thousand millions. - -By a "place in the sun" Prince Bülow meant, primarily, territorial -expansion for Germany's "surplus population." Yet even in this respect -German aggrandizement kept pace with her fabulous economic development. -When war broke out in 1914, the German colonial empire oversea was -hundreds of thousands of square miles more extensive than Germany in -Europe. It is true that the Germans went in for colonial land-grabbing -late in the game, after England, particularly, had acquired the best -territory in both hemispheres, and many years after the Monroe Doctrine -had effectually checked European expansion in the Americas. As the -result of "colonial empire" in inferior regions of the earth, the total -white population of German colonies in 1913 was less than twenty-eight -thousand, or roundly, three and one-half per cent. of the _annual_ -growth of German population. Although acquired nominally for "trade," -Germany's commerce with her colonies in imports and exports totaled in -1914 a fraction more than twenty-five million dollars, or about -_one-half of one per cent._ of Germany's total trade of five thousand -million dollars in 1912. Germany's lust for a larger "place in the -sun," as it has been aptly described by the author of _J'Accuse_, is -"square-mile greed," pure and simple, and as the same frank and -brilliant writer points out, Germany not only demands a "place in the -sun," but claims it for herself alone, insisting that the rest of the -world shall content itself with "a place in the shade." - -To popularize the "place in the sun" theory two great German national -organizations went valiantly to work--the Pan-German League and the -German Navy League. The Pan-Germans, whose efforts were seconded by a -subsidiary society called the Association for the Perpetuation of -Germanism Abroad, set themselves the task of educating German public -opinion in regard to "the bitter need" of a "Greater Germany," to be -achieved by hook or crook. The German Navy League dedicated itself to -fomenting agitation designed to meet the Kaiser's expressed "bitter -need" of vast German sea power. Ostensibly private in character, both -of these militant propaganda organizations enjoyed more or less official -countenance and support. On occasion, when their activities appeared -too pernicious or threatened to obstruct the subtle machinations of -German diplomacy, the Government would convincingly "disavow" the -leagues. But all the time they were working for Germany's "place in the -sun." Under their auspices, the country for years was drenched with -belligerent and provocative literature, which harped ceaselessly on the -theme that what Germany could not secure by diplomacy she must prepare -to extort by the sword. - -As the Pan-Germans and the Navy League cherished twin aspirations, it -was not surprising that two men, General Keim, a retired officer of the -army, and Count Ernst zu Reventlow, a retired officer of the navy, -should be moving spirits in both organizations. General Keim, in his -zeal to support Admiral von Tirpitz's big navy schemes, eventually went -to such extremes in the pursuit of his duties as president of the Navy -League that the organization's existence as a national association was -momentarily threatened. It was giving the game away. Keim was -thereupon removed from his position, to be succeeded by the Grand Old -Man of the German Fleet, Grand-Admiral von Koester. Koester was -_suaviter in modo_, but no less _fortiter in re_ than Keim. Entering -the presidency of the Navy League in the midst of the Dreadnought era, -when Germany's dream of her "future upon the water" was sweetest, his -systematic fanning of the public temper, especially against England, -left nothing to be desired. - -General Keim, deposed from the leadership of the Navy League, was -presently kicked up-stairs by the German War Party and made president of -the newly-formed "German Defense League." This association was -organized to launch a national agitation in favor of increasing the -German military establishment. - -The methods which had caused Keim's "downfall" from the presidency of -the Navy League were promptly employed by him in the new army league. -With a host of influential newspapers and "war industry" interests at -their back, plus the benevolent patronage of the Imperial family and -Government, Koester and Keim carried out for six years preceding August, -1914, the most prodigious and audacious propaganda crusade in European -history. Germany's need for "a place in the sun," on whatever -particular chord they harped, was always their keynote. The "Defense -League" scored its crowning triumph in 1913 by accomplishing the passage -of the celebrated Army Bill whereby the land forces of the Empire were -augmented at an expense of two hundred fifty million dollars--the -immediate preliminary step to the assault of Europe by the Kaiser's -legions. - -Count Reventlow, a Jingo of Jingoes, rendered both the navy and army -leagues valiant support in the columns of his newspaper, the _Deutsche -Tageszeitung_, and in a regular grist of pamphlets and books which his -facile pen from time to time reeled off. Reventlow was one of the -archpriests of the War Party. A champion hater of everything foreign, -he was temperamentally fitted to advocate the doctrine of Force and -Germany's right to world-conquest by fire and sword. Count Reventlow, -whom it was my pleasure to know intimately, hated England, France and -Russia with a ferocity delightful to behold. His Francophobism was -little diminished by his marriage to a charming French noblewoman. He -hated America, too. I could never quite divine the gallant Count's -reason for eating an American alive, in his mind, every morning for -breakfast, and for despising us as cordially as he detested Mr. Winston -Churchill, Monsieur Delcassé or the Czar, until he confessed to me one -day that he lost a fortune through unfortunate speculation in a Florida -fruit plantation. Thenceforth, apparently, Reventlow's anti-Americanism -knew no bounds. It was more explosive than usual during his discussion -of the _Lusitania_ massacre, but it was pathological. - -A pillar of the German War Party, whose name is almost entirely unknown -abroad, is Doctor Hammann, chief of the notorious Press Bureau of the -German Foreign Office and Imperial Chancellery. Hammann for twenty -years, because one of the craftiest, has been one of the most powerful -men in German politics. For two decades he survived the incessant -vicissitudes and intrigues of the Foreign Office, which indeed were more -than once of his own making. He was frequently credited with being "the -real Chancellor" in Bülow's days because of his sinister influence over -that suave statesman. Hammann's nominal duties were confined to -manipulating the German press for the Government's purposes and to -exercising such "control" over the Berlin correspondents of foreign -newspapers as might from time to time appear feasible or possible. -Himself a retired journalist of unsavory reputation--he was a few years -ago under indictment for perjury in an unlovely domestic scandal--he -seemed to his superiors an ideal personage to deal with the Fourth -Estate, which Bismarck trained Germans to look upon as "the reptile -press." Hammann's function, for the War Party's purposes, was to -mislead public opinion, at home and abroad, as to the real intentions -and machinations of _Weltpolitik_. Under his shrewd direction German -newspapers, restlessly propagating the Fatherland's need for "a place in -the sun," systematically distorted the international situation so as to -represent Germany as the innocent lamb and all other nations as ravenous -wolves howling for her immaculate blood. That Hammann is regarded as -having rendered "our just cause" priceless service was proved only a few -months ago by his promotion to a full division-directorship in the -Foreign Office. He had hitherto ranked merely as a _Wirklicher -Geheimrat_, or sub-official of the department, although as a matter of -fact five Foreign Secretaries, "under" whom he nominally served, were -mere putty in the hands of Germany's Imperial Press Agent-in-Chief. - -Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz, of course, has for years been one of the -super-pillars of the German War Party. The Kaiser's Fleet is the -creation of von Tirpitz, though William II receives popular credit for -the achievement, and von Tirpitz created it essentially for war. Von -Tirpitz once honored me with a heart-to-heart confab on Anglo-German -naval rivalry. He rebuked me in a paternal way for specializing in -German naval news. Germany had no ulterior motive, he said. She was -building a defensive fleet primarily, though one that would be strong -enough, on occasion, to "throw into the balance of international -politics a weight commensurate with Germany's status as a World Power." -Von Tirpitz was the incarnation of the naval spirit which longed for the -chance to show the world that Germany at sea was as "glorious" as -centuries of martial history had proved her on land. German sailors -chafed under the corroding restraint of peace. They hankered for -laurels. They were tired of manning a dress-parade fleet, whose -functions seemed to be confined to holding spectacular reviews for the -Kaiser's glorification at Kiel. They hungered for "the Day." Von -Tirpitz has denied passionately that they ever drank to "the Day" in -their battleship messes. But it was the unspoken prayer which lulled -them to well-earned sleep, for in consequence of the iron discipline and -remorseless labor which von Tirpitz imposed on his officers and men in -anticipation of "Germany's Trafalgar," the Kaiser's Fleet was the -hardest worked navy in the world. No Armada in history was ever so -perpetually "battle-ready" as the German High Seas Fleet. It was the -Fleet which made its very own that other hypocritical German battle-cry, -"The Freedom of the Sea," which means, of course, a German-ruled sea. - -Von Tirpitz's task was not only to build the fleet but to agitate German -public opinion uninterruptedly in favor of its constant expansion. To -him and the Navy League, which he controlled, and to his Press Bureau -and its swarm of journalistic and literary parasites, were due the -remarkable Anglophobe campaigns which resulted in the desired periodical -additions to the Fleet. A politician of consummate talent, von Tirpitz -held successive Reichstags in the palm of his hand. No Imperial -Chancellor, though nominally his chief, was ever able to override the -imperious will of von Tirpitz the Eternal. Repeatedly in the years -preceding the war England held out the hand of a naval _entente_. The -War Party and von Tirpitz said "No!" And Armageddon became as -inevitable as the setting sun. - -I have enumerated only the outstanding figures of the German War Party. -They could be supplemented at will--there are the men like Professor von -Schmoller, of the University of Berlin, who foresees the day when "a -nation of two hundred million Germans oversea would rise in Southern -Brazil"; or Professor Adolf Lasson, also of Berlin, who proclaimed the -doctrine that Germans' "cultural paramountcy over all other nations" -entitles them to hegemony over the earth; or Professor Adolf Wagner, the -Berlin economist, who excoriates compulsory arbitration as the refuge of -the politically impotent and a dogma beneath the dignity of the Germany -of the Hohenzollerns; or the whole dynasty of politician-professors like -Delbrück, Zorn, Liszt, Edward and Kuno Meyer, Eucken, Haeckel, Harnack, -or minor theorists like Münsterberg, who year in and year out preached -the doctrine of Teutonic superiority, Teutonic invincibility and -Teutonic "world destiny." These intellectual auxiliaries of the War -Party in their day have sent tens of thousands of young men out of -German universities with politically polluted minds. Their class-rooms -have been the real breeding ground and recruiting camps of the German -War Party. - -And then, of course, in addition to the admirals who wanted war, and the -professors who glorified war, and the editors, pamphleteers, Navy and -Army League leaders and paid agitators who wrote and talked war, there -was the German Army, represented by its corps of fifty thousand or sixty -thousand officers, which was the living, ineradicable incarnation of war -and with every breath it drew sighed impatiently for its coming. I -suppose armies in all countries more or less constitute "war parties." -But never in our time has an army tingled and spoiled for battle as -sleeplessly as the legions of the Kaiser. It was written in the stars -that it was only a question of time when they would realize their -aspiration to prove that the German war machine of the day was not only -the peer, but incomparably the superior, of the Juggernauts with the aid -of which Frederick the Great and Moltke remapped Europe. - -But the Grand Mogul of the German War Party, its pet, darling and patron -saint, was Crown Prince William, the Kaiser's ebullient heir who -contributed so conspicuously to Germany's loss of Paris in September, -1914. For ten years he was the apple of the army's eye. William II's -oratorical peace palaverings long ago convinced his military paladins -that their hopes could no longer with safety be pinned on the monarch -who would do nothing but _rattle_ his saber. "A place in the sun" could -never be achieved by such tactics, they argued, so they transferred -their affections and their expectations to the "young man" who cheered -in the Reichstag when his father's Government was accused of cowardice -in Morocco. They placed their destinies in the keeping of the Imperial -hotspur who wrote in his book, _Germany in Arms_, that "visionary dreams -of everlasting peace throughout the world are un-German." Their real -allegiance was sworn henceforth to the swashbuckling young buffoon, who, -taking leave of the Death's Head Hussars after two years' colonelcy, -admonished them to "think of him whose most ardent desire it has always -been to be allowed to share at your side the supreme moment of a -soldier's happiness--when the King calls to arms and the bugle sounds -the charge!" It was an open secret that when the Crown Prince was -exiled to the command of a cavalry regiment in dreamy Danzig, far away -from the frenzied plaudits of the multitude in Berlin, the Kaiser's -action was inspired by the disquieting realisation that his heir was -acquiring a popularity, both in and out of the army, which boded ill for -the security of the monarch's own status with his subjects. - -These, then, are the men, and these their principal methods, which -provided the scenario for the impending clash. As with every great -"production," preliminary plans were well and truly laid. Rehearsals, -in the form of stupendous maneuvers on "a strictly warlike basis," had -brought the chief actors, scene shifters and other accessories to -first-night pitch. The stage managers' work was done. They had now -only to take their appointed places in the flies and wings and let the -tragedy proceed. The rest could be left to the puppets on both sides of -the footlights. A month of slow music, and then the grand _finale_. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - SLOW MUSIC - - -July in Berlin of the red summer of 1914 began as placidly as a feast -day in Utopia. The electric shock of Serajevo soon spent its force. -Germans seemed to be vastly more concerned over the effect of the -Archduke's assassination on the health of the old Austrian Emperor than -over resultant international complications. It was Sir Edward Goschen, -British Ambassador in Berlin, previously accredited to the Vienna court, -who recalled to me Francis Joseph's once-expressed determination to -outlive his heir. The doddering octogenarian had realized his grim -ambition. - -The German Emperor returned to Berlin from Kiel on Monday, the 30th of -June. Ties of deep affection united him to his aged Austrian ally. It -was universally assumed that the Kaiser, with characteristic -impetuosity, would rush to Vienna to comfort Francis Joseph and attend -the Archduke's funeral. So, as events developed, he ardently desired to -do; but intimations speedily arrived from the _Hofburg_ that "Kaiser -Franz" had chosen to carry his newest cross unmolested by the flummery -and circumstance of State obsequies, and William II remained in Berlin -for honorary funeral services in his own cathedral in memory of the -august departed. Some day a historian, who will have great things to -tell, may relate the real reason for the baffling of the Kaiser's desire -to play the rôle of chief mourner at spectacular death-rites in the -other German capital. He had telegraphed the orphans of the murdered -Archduke and Duchess that his "heart was bleeding for them." Men who -have an X-ray knowledge of Imperial William's psychology were unkind -enough to suggest that he longed to parade himself before the mourning -populace of the Austrian metropolis as Lohengrin in the hour of its woe, -an Emperor on whom it were safer to lean than on the decrepit figurehead -now bowed in impotent grief, with a beardless grand-nephew of an heir -apparent as the sole hope of the trembling future. - -Until the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand began to assert himself, -William II's influence at Vienna had been profound. Francis Joseph -liked and trusted him. Austria was frequently governed from Potsdam. -With the great bar to his ascendency removed from the scene, the German -Emperor may well have thought the hour at length arrived for the virile -Hohenzollerns to save the crumbling Hapsburgs from themselves, and -invertebrate Austria-Hungary from the Hapsburgs. But Vienna decided it -was better the Kaiser should stay at home. His political physicians, on -the evening of July 1, suddenly discovered that His Majesty was -suffering from that famous German malady known as "diplomatic illness," -whereupon the court M.D. dutifully announced, through the obliging -official news-agency, that "owing to a slight attack of lumbago" the -Kaiser would not attend the funeral of the murdered Archduke, "as had -been arranged." Forty-eight hours later other "face-saving" procedure -was carried out--the Viennese court proclaimed that by the express wish -of the Emperor Francis Joseph, no foreign guests of any nationality were -expected to attend the Royal obsequies. - -On Monday, July 6, William's "lumbago" having yielded to treatment, -there was sprung one of the most dramatic of all the _coups_ which -preceded the fructification of the German War Party's now -fast-completing conspiracy. Although martial law was being ruthlessly -enforced in Bosnia and Herzegovina and all Austria-Hungary was in a -state of rising ferment over the "expiation" which public opinion -insisted "the Serbian murderers" must render, the Kaiser's mind was made -up for him that the international situation was sufficiently placid for -him to start on his annual holiday cruise to the North Cape. Four days -previous, July 2, though the world was not to know it till many weeks -afterward, the military governor of German Southwest Africa unexpectedly -informed a number of German officers in the colony that they might go -home on special leave if they could catch the outgoing steamer. These -officers reached Germany during the first week in August, to find orders -awaiting them to join their regiments in the field. Notifications -issued to Austrian subjects in distant countries were subsequently found -also to bear date of July 2. Things were moving. - -The _Hohenzollern_ steamed away to the fjords of Norway with the Kaiser -and his customary company of congenial spirits. The -Government-controlled _Lokal-Anzeiger_ and other journalistic handmaids -of officialdom forthwith proclaimed that "with his old-time tact our -Emperor, by pursuing the even tenor of his way, gives us and the world -this gratifying and convincing sign that however menacing the -storm-clouds in the Southeast may seem, _lieb' Vaterland mag ruhig -sein_. All is well with Germany." Or words to that effect. Germany -and Europe were thus effectually lulled into a false sense of security, -for, as one read further in other "inspired" German newspapers, "our -patriotic Emperor is not the man to withdraw his hand from the helm of -State if peril were in the air." So off went the Kaiser to his beloved -Bergen, Trondhjem and Tromsö to flatter the Norwegians as he had done -for twenty summers previous and to shake hands with the tourists who -always "booked" cabins in the Hamburg-American North Cape steamers in -anticipation of the distinction the Kaiser never failed to bestow upon -Herr Ballin's patrons. - -The Kaiser's departure from Germany was particularly well timed to -bolster up the fiction subsequently so insistently propagated, that -Austria's impending coercion of Serbia was none of Germany's doing. The -_Hohenzollern_ had hardly slipped out of Baltic waters when Vienna's -"diplomatic _demarche_" at Belgrade began. It was specifically asserted -that these "representations" would be "friendly." Europe must under no -circumstances, thus early in the game, be roused from its midsummer -siesta. The official bulletin from the _Hohenzollern_ read: "All's well -on board. His Majesty listened to-day to a learned treatise on Slav -archeology by Professor Theodor Schiemann. To-morrow the Kaiser will -inspect the Fridthjof statue which he presented to the Norwegian people -three years ago." - -Austria-Hungary has a press bureau, too, and doubtless a Hammann of its -own; now it cleared for action. While Vienna's "friendly -representations" were in progress at Belgrade, the papers of Vienna and -Budapest began sounding the tocsin for "vigorous" prosecution of the -Dual Monarchy's case against the Serbian assassins and their -accessories. The Serbian Government meantime remained imperturbable. -Princip and Cabrinovitch, the takers of the Archduke and Duchess' lives, -after all were Austrian-Hungarian subjects, and their crime was -committed on Austrian-Hungarian soil. Serbia, said Belgrade, must be -proved guilty of responsibility for Serajevo before she could be -expected to accept it. Then the Berlin press bureau took the field. -The _Lokal-Anzeiger_ "admitted" that things were beginning to look as if -"Germany will again have to prove her Nibelung loyalty," _i.e._, in -support of Austria, as during the other Bosnian crisis, in 1909. - -By the end of the second week of July the world's most sensitive -recording instruments, the stock exchanges, commenced to vibrate with -the tremors of brewing unrest. The Bourse at Vienna was disturbingly -weak. Berlin responded with sympathetic slumps. To the _Daily Mail_ in -London and the _New York Times_ I was able, on the night of July 10, to -cable the significant message that the German Imperial Bank was now -putting pressure on all German banks to induce them to keep ten per -cent. of their deposits and assets on hand in money. On the same day an -unexplained tragedy occurred in Belgrade: the Russian minister to the -Serbian court, Monsieur de Hartwig, Germanism's arch-foe in the Balkans, -died suddenly while taking tea with his Austrian diplomatic colleague, -Baron Giesling. - -Germany the while was going about its business, which at mid-July -consists principally in slowing down the strenuous life and extending -mere nocturnal "bummeling" in home haunts to seashore, forests and -mountains for protracted sojourns of weeks and months. The "cure" -resorts were crowded. In the _al fresco_ restaurants in the cities, one -could hear the Germans eating and drinking as of peaceful yore. The -schools were closed and Stettiner Bahnhof, which leads to the Baltic, -and Lehrter Bahnhof, the gateway to the North Sea, were choked from -early morning till late at night with excited and perspiring Berliners -off for their prized _Sommerfrische_. _Herr Bankdirektor_ Meyer and -_Herr_ and _Frau Rechtsanwalt_ Salzmann were a good deal more interested -in the food at the _Logierhaus_ they had selected for themselves and the -_kinder_ at Heringsdorf or Westerland-Sylt than they were in Austria's -avenging diplomatic moves in Belgrade. Stock-brokers were only -moderately nervous over the gyrations of the Bourse. Germans who had -not yet made off for the seaside or the Tyrol felt surer than ever that -war was a chimera when they read that Monsieur Humbert had just revealed -to the French Senate the criminal unpreparedness of the Republic's -military establishment. - -Strain between Austria and Serbia was now increasing. Canadian Pacific, -German stock-dabblers' favorite "flyer," tumbled on the Vienna and -Berlin Bourses to the lowest level reached since 1910. Real war rumors -now cropped up. Austria was reported to have "partially mobilized" two -army corps. Canadian Pacifics continued to be "unloaded" by nervous -Germans in quantities unprecedented. Now Serbia was "reported" to be -mobilizing. It was July 17. England, we gathered in Berlin, was -thinking only of Ireland. Berlin correspondents of great London dailies -who were trying to impress the British public with the gravity of the -European situation had their dispatches edited down to back-page -dimensions--if they were printed at all. One colleague, who represented -a famous English Liberal newspaper, had arranged, weeks before, to start -on his holidays at the end of July. He telegraphed his editor that he -thought it advisable to abandon his preparations and to remain in -Berlin. "See no occasion for any alteration of your arrangements," was -wired back from Fleet Street. - -The German War Party, acting through Hammann, now perpetrated another -grim little witticism. It was solemnly announced in the Berlin -press--on July 18--that the third squadron of the German High Seas Fleet -was to be "sent to an English port in August (!) to return the visit -lately paid to Kiel by a British squadron." Britain's Grand Armada the -while was assembled off Spithead for the mightiest naval review in -history--two hundred and thirty vessels manned by seventy thousand -officers and men. King George spent Sunday, July 19, quietly at sea, -steaming up and down the endless lines of dreadnoughts and lesser -ironclads. The Lord Mayor of London opened a new golf course at -Croydon. And Ulster was smoldering. - -Highly instructive now were the recriminations going on in the German, -Austrian and Serbian press. Belgrade denied that reserves had been -called up. The _North German Gazette_, the official mouthpiece of the -Kaiser's Government, no longer seeking to minimize the seriousness of -the Austrian-Serbian quarrel, expressed the pious hope that the -"discussion" would at least be "localized." Canadian Pacifics still -clattered downward. Acerbities between Vienna and Belgrade were growing -more acrimonious and menacing from hour to hour. Diplomatic -correspondence of historic magnitude, as the impending avalanche of -White Papers, Blue Books, Yellow Books and Red Papers was soon to show, -was already (July 20) in uninterrupted progress, though the quarreling -Irishmen and militant suffragettes of Great Britain knew it not, any -more than the summer resort merrymakers and "cure-takers" of Germany. -The foreign offices, stock exchanges, embassies, legations and newspaper -offices of the Continent were fairly alive to the imminence of -transcendent events, but the great European public, though within ten -days of Armageddon, was magnificently immersed in the ignorance which -the poet has so truly called bliss. - -Her "friendly representations" at Belgrade having proved abortive, -Austria now prepared for more forceful measures. On July 21 Berlin -learned that Count Berchtold, the Viennese foreign minister, had -proceeded to Ischl to submit to the Emperor Francis Joseph the note he -had drawn up for presentation to Serbia. As the world was about to -learn, this was the fateful ultimatum which poured oil on the European -embers and set them aglare, to splutter, burn and devastate in a -long-enduring and all-engulfing conflagration. Simultaneously--though -this, too, was not known till months later--the Austrian minister at -Belgrade sent off a dispatch to his Government, declaring that a -"reckoning" with Serbia could not be "permanently avoided," that "half -measures were useless," and that the time had come to put forward -"far-reaching requirements joined to effective control." That, as -events were soon to develop, was an example of the diplomatic rhetoric -which masters of statecraft employ for concealment of thought. It meant -that nothing less than the abject surrender of Serbian sovereignty would -appease Vienna's desire for vengeance for Serajevo. - -During all these hours, so pregnant with the fate of Europe, the German -Foreign Office was stormed by foreign newspaper correspondents in quest -of light on Germany's attitude. Was she counseling moderation in -Vienna, or fishing in troubled waters? Was she reminding her ally that -while Serajevo was primarily an Austrian question, it was in its broad -aspects essentially a European issue? Was the Kaiser really playing his -vaunted rôle as the bulwark of _European_ peace, or was Herr von -Tschirschky, his Ambassador in Vienna, adjuring the Ballplatz that it -was Austria's duty to "stand firm" in the presence of the crowning Slav -infamy, and that William of Hohenzollern was ready once again to don -"shining armor" for the defense of "Germanic honor"? - -These are the questions we representatives of British and American -newspapers persistently launched at the veracious Berlin Press Bureau. -What did Hammann and his minions tell us? That Germany regarded the -Austrian-Serbian controversy a purely private affair between those two -countries; that Germany had at no stage of the imbroglio been consulted -by her Austrian ally, and that the last thing in the world which -occurred to the tactful Wilhelmstrasse was to proffer unasked-for -counsel to Count Berchtold, Emperor Francis Joseph's Foreign Minister, -at so delicate and critical a moment. Vienna would properly resent such -unwarranted interference with her sovereign prerogatives as a Great -Power--we were assured. Germany's attitude was that of an innocent -bystander and interested witness, and nothing more. That was the -version of the Fatherland's attitude sedulously peddled out for both -home and foreign consumption. - -Behind us lay a week of tremor and unrest unknown since the days, -exactly forty-four years previous, preceding the Franco-Prussian War. -The money universe, most susceptible and prescient of all worlds, rocked -with nervous alarm. Its instinctive apprehension of imminent crisis was -fanned into panic on the night of July 23, when word came that Austria -had presented Serbia an ultimatum with a time limit of forty-eight -hours. My own information of Vienna's crucial step was prompt and -unequivocal. It was on its way to London and New York before seven -o'clock Thursday evening, Berlin time. I was gratified to learn at the -_Daily Mail_ office in London three weeks later that I had given England -her first news of the match which had at last been applied to the -European powder barrel. It was five or six hours later before general -announcement of the Austrian ultimatum arrived in Fleet Street. - -I was not surprised to learn that my startling telegram had aroused no -little skepticism. During many days preceding it was the despair of the -Berlin correspondents of British newspapers that they seemed utterly -unable to impress their home publics with the fast-gathering gravity of -the European situation. London was no less nonchalant than Paris and St. -Petersburg. England was immersed to the exclusion of everything else in -the throes of the Irish-Ulster crisis. Mr. Redmond and Sir Edward -Carson loomed immeasurably bigger on the horizon than all Austria and -Serbia put together. In the boulevards, cafés and government-offices of -Paris the salacious details of the Caillaux trial absorbed all thought. -In St. Petersburg one hundred sixty thousand working men threatened an -upheaval which bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the revolutionary -conditions of 1905. But it was the invincible indifference of London, as -it seemed in Berlin, which appealed to us most. - -The newspapers of July 21, 22 and 23 came in and indicated that for -England Ulster had become Europe. There was obviously little space for, -and less interest in, dispatches from Berlin or Vienna describing the -"undisguised concern" prevalent in those capitals. On July 21 I quoted -"high diplomatic authority" for the statement that the pistol would be -at Serbia's breast before the end of the week. But London remained -impervious. More than one of my British colleagues, equally -unsuccessful in stirring the emotions of his people, threw up his hands -in resignation, muttering things about "British complacency," which -would have come with poor grace from a mere American. - -Since then it has occurred to me that England's sublime unconcern in the -approach of Armageddon may have been more apparent than real. Sir -Edward Grey's strenuous days and nights of telegraphing to his -Continental ambassadors, as England's White Paper revealed, had set in -as early as July 20, when he wired Sir Edward Goschen to Berlin that "I -asked the German Ambassador today if he had any news of what was going -on in Vienna with regard to Serbia." That was No. 1 in the series of -historic dispatches comprising the official British record of the -genesis of the war, which shows that there was no lack of anticipation -of coming events, as far as Downing Street was concerned. So I am -impelled to think that there may have been method in Fleet Street's -"splashing" (_Anglice_ for "featuring") pretty Miss Gabrielle Ray's -entangled love affairs and minimizing the determination of Austria to -plunge Europe into war. There is a fine spirit of solidarity in England -concerning foreign affairs. British editors in particular traditionally -refrain from crossing the policy of the Foreign Office, no matter what -the party complexion of the minister in charge. They are accustomed to -supporting it unequivocally either by omission or commission, as the -interests of Great Britain from hour to hour suggest. Whenever an -attitude of debonair detachment toward a given "foreign affair" is best -designed to promote the country's diplomatic programme, Fleet Street can -be insensibility incarnate, national _esprit de corps_ effectually -fulfilling the function of a censor. No one has ever told me that that -is why the appointment of a new principal for Dulwich College received -almost as much prominence on the morning of July 24 as news from Berlin, -Vienna or Belgrade. My suggestion of the reason is a diffident surmise, -pure and simple. It contributed materially, no doubt, toward making -Germany believe that England was too "preoccupied" with Irishmen and -suffragettes to think of going to war for her political honor. - -But in Berlin things were now (July 24) moving toward the climax with -impetuous momentum. On that day, summing up events and opinion in -official and military quarters, I telegraphed the following message to -London: - - -"'We are ready!' This was the sententious reply given today by a high -official of the General Staff to an inquiry with regard to Germany's -state of preparedness in the event that an Austro-Serbian conflict -precipitates a European war. - -"I am able to state authoritatively that the _casus foederis_ which -binds Austria, Germany and Italy in alliance would come into effect -automatically the instant Austria is attacked from any quarter other -than Servia.[1] - - -[1] The "assurances" given me by Foreign Office spokesmen, as reproduced -in the foregoing telegram, were, of course, made at a moment when the -German Government, no doubt quite sincerely, felt surer than it did ten -days hence that the _casus foederis_ which obligated Italy to join -Germany and Austria in war would be recognized by her without quibble. -Germany, as the world was so soon to find out, had convinced her own -people that her war was a holy war of defense, but Italy, visiting upon -her Triple Alliance partners the supreme condemnation of contemporary -political history, deserted them on the palpable ground that their war -was war of aggression, pure and unalloyed. - - -"I am further able to say that while Germany expects that war between -Austria and Serbia is possible, owing to the admittedly unprecedented -severity of the Austrian demands, this Government confidently hopes that -hostilities will be confined to them. - -"It would be going too far to say that 'war fever' prevails in Berlin to -the extent it is reported to be rampant in Vienna. I find, however, -even in circles to which the thought of war is ordinarily repugnant, -that the imminent possibility of a European conflict is contemplated -with equanimity. They say that Austria's resolute action has already -cleared the atmosphere of long-prevailing 'uncertainty' which was -gradually becoming insufferable. They declare in accents of relief that -a situation has finally been reached where there can be no retreat. Far -worse things, it is declared, are conceivable than the conflagration -which Europe for years has half dreaded and half prepared for. - -"Official Germany, nevertheless, does not believe that Russia will force -the issue. It is argued that the matter at stake is entirely a domestic -quarrel between Austria and Serbia and involves Pan-Slavism only -indirectly. If Russia makes the controversy a pretext for assisting the -Serbians, it is pointed out that 'the world's strongest bulwark of the -monarchial principle would practically place the stamp of approval on -regicide.' As suppression of regicide propaganda, root and branch, is -the mainspring of the Austrian action, the German Government holds it is -inconceivable that Russia could in such circumstances align herself with -Serbia. If she does, and I am permitted to underline this phase of the -crisis with all possible emphasis, the full strength of Germany's and -Italy's armed forces are ready to be mercilessly hurled against her, and -will be. - -"A war against Russia would never be more popular in Germany than at the -present moment. For months past the country has been educated by its -most distinguished leaders to believe that an attack from Russia is -imminent. During the past week Professor Hans Delbrück has been giving -wide publicity to an 'open letter' received from a Russian colleague, -Professor Mitrosanoff, containing the following passage: - -"'It must not be forgotten that Russian public opinion plays a vastly -different rôle than it did a decade ago. It has now grown into a full -political force. Animosity toward Germans is in everybody's heart and -mouth. Seldom was public opinion more unanimous.' - -"Almost simultaneously Professor Schiemann, the Kaiser's confidential -adviser on world politics, has heaped fresh fuel on the anti-Russian -fire by declaring: 'We have reason to think that the underlying purpose -of President Poincaré's visit to the Czar was to expand the Triple -Entente into a Quadruple Alliance by the inclusion of Rumania against -Germany.' - -"The Bourse closed amid undisguised alarm and the wildest fears for what -the week-end may bring forth. The public is inclined to remain -reassured as long as the Kaiser consents to remain afloat in the -_Hohenzollern_ in the fjords of Norway, but he can reach German waters -in twenty-four hours aboard the speedy dispatch-boat _Sleipner_, which -is attached to the Imperial squadron. - -"I asked a military man today what show of force Germany would make at -the outbreak of hostilities involving her. He said: 'She could easily -mobilize one million five hundred thousand men within forty-eight hours -on each of her frontiers, east and west. That gigantic total of three -million would represent only the active war establishment and -reserves.'" - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - THE CLIMAX - - -My long-standing preconceptions of Berlin as the phlegmatic capital of a -phlegmatic people were obliterated for all time at eight-thirty o'clock -on Saturday evening, July 25, 1914. Along with them went equally -well-founded beliefs that, however incorrigible their War Party's lust -for international strife, the German masses were pacific by temperament -and conviction. When the news of Serbia's alleged rejection of -Austria's ultimatum was hoisted in _Unter den Linden_, and Berlin gave -way in a flash to a babel and pandemonium of sheer war fever probably -never equaled in a civilized community, I knew that all my "psychology" -of the Germans was as myopic as if I had learned it in Professor -Münsterberg's laboratory at Harvard. Instantaneously I realized that -the stage managers had done their work with deadly precision and -all-devouring thoroughness. If the mere suggestion of gunpowder could -distend the nostrils of the "peaceful Germans" and cause their capital -to vibrate in every fiber of its being as that first real hint of war -did, I was forced to conclude that the cataclysm now impending would -find a Germany animated to its innermost depths by primeval fighting -passions. Events have not belied the new and disquieting impressions -with which Berlin's war delirium inspired me. - -On the evening of July 25, after cabling to England and the United -States accounts of the blackest Saturday in Berlin bourse history, I -made my way to _Unter den Linden_ in anticipation of demonstrations -certain to be provoked by the result of the Austrian ultimatum, no -matter whether Serbia had yielded or defied. I reached the -Wilhelmstrasse corner, where the British Embassy stood, only a moment -after the fateful bulletin had been put up in the _Lokal-Anzeiger's_ -windows. It read: "Serbia Rejects the Austrian Ultimatum!" That was -not quite true--to put it mildly--as the world was soon to know that far -from "rejecting" Count Berchtold's cavalier demands, Serbia bent the -knee to every single one of them except that which called for abject -surrender of her sovereign independence. But the huge crowds which had -been gathered in _Unter den Linden_ since sundown--it was now a little -past eight-thirty o'clock and still quite light--knew nothing of this. -All they knew and all they cared about was that "Serbien hat abgelehnt!" -War, the intuition of the mob assured it, was now inevitable. - -"_Krieg! Krieg!_" (War! War!) it thundered. "_Nieder mit Serbien! -Hoch, Oesterreich!_" (Down with Serbia! Hurrah for Austria!) rang from -thousands of frenzied throats. Processions formed. Men and youths, here -and there women and girls, lined up, military fashion, four abreast. -One cavalcade, the larger, headed toward Pariser Platz and the -Brandenburg Gate. Another eastward, down the Linden. A mighty song now -rent the air--_Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser_ (God Save Emperor -Francis), the Austrian national anthem. Then shouts, yelled in the -accents of imprecation--"_Nieder mit Russland!_" (Down with Russia). -The bigger procession's destination was soon known. It was marching to -the Austrian Embassy in the Moltke-strasse. The smaller parade was -headed for the Russian Embassy in _Unter den Linden_. In my taxi I -decided to follow on to Moltke-strasse, and, crossing to the far side of -the Linden, I came up with the rearguard of the demonstrators just -opposite the château-like Embassy of France in the Pariser Platz. -Gathered on the portico servants were clustered watching the -"_manifestation_." At their hapless heads the processionists were -shaking their German fists as much as to say that France, too, was -included in the orgy of patriotic wrath now surging up in the Teutonic -soul. It was a touch of humor in an otherwise overwhelmingly grim -spectacle. - -Through the entrance to the leafy Tiergarten, down the pompous and -sepulchral Avenue of Victory, across the Königs-Platz with its -Gulliverian statue of the Iron Chancellor and the Column of Victory, -through the district whose street nomenclature breathes of Germany's -martial glory--Roon-strasse, Bismarck-strasse and Moltke-strasse--the -parade, now swelled to many times its original proportions, halted in -front of the Austrian Embassy. Some self-appointed cheer-leader called -for _Hochs_ for the ally, for another stanza of the Austrian national -anthem, for more "Down with Serbia," and for more yells of defiance to -Russia. Opposite the embassy-palace towered the massive block-square -General Staff building. From it there emerged, while the demonstration -was at its zenith, three young subalterns. The mob seized them -joyously, shouldered them and acclaimed them--the brass-buttoned and -epauletted embodiment of the army on whom Germany's hopes were presently -to be pinned. "_Krieg! Krieg!_" the war mongers chanted in ecstatic -shrieks. Then "_Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_," twin of the -Austrian anthem as far as the melody is concerned, was sung with -tremendous fervor. The crowd yelled for Emperor Francis Joseph's -ambassador, the Hungarian Count von Szögeny-Marich, but, if he was at -home, he preferred not to face the multitude. Presently a beardless -young embassy attaché appeared at an open window--the physical -personification of the allied Empire--and he almost reeled from the -shock of the tumultuous shout hurtled in his monocled countenance. - -For nearly an hour delirium reigned unbridled. Then the demonstrators -betook themselves back to the Linden district, where they met up with -more processions. Throughout the night, far into Sunday morning, Berlin -reverberated with their tramp and clamor. My doubts as to the capital's -temper toward war were resolved, my cherished confidence in the average -German's fundamental love of peace shattered. Berlin is the tuning-fork -of the Empire. As she was shrieking "War! War!" so, I felt sure, -Hamburg and Munich, Dresden and Stuttgart, Cologne and Breslau, -Königsberg and Metz, would be shrieking before the world was many hours -older. And when the Sunday papers reported that "fervent patriotic -demonstrations" had broken out everywhere the night before, as soon as -"Serbia's insolent action" was communicated to the public, something -within me said that only a miracle could now restrain war-mad Germany -from herself plunging into the fray. - -I have said that Armageddon was instigated by the German War Party. In -substantiation of that charge let me narrate a bit of unrecorded -history. About four o'clock of the afternoon of July 25--the day of -orgy in Berlin above described--the Austrian Foreign Office in Vienna -issued a confidential intimation to various persons accustomed to be -favored with such communications that the Serbian reply to the ultimatum -had arrived and was satisfactory. It did not succumb in respect of -every demand put forth by Austria, but it was sufficiently groveling to -insure peace. Foreign newspaper correspondents, to several of whom the -information was supplied, learned, when they applied at their own -Embassies for confirmation, that the latter, too, had been formally -acquainted with the fact that Serbia's concessions were far-reaching -enough to guarantee a bloodless settlement of the ugly crisis. - -Vienna breathed a long, sincere sigh of relief. She had feared the -worst from the moment Count Berchtold dispatched _the Berlin-dictated -ultimatum_ to Belgrade; but the worst was over now. Serbian penitence -had saved Austrian face. - -While correspondents were busily preparing their telegrams, which were -to flash all over the world the welcome tidings that war had been -averted, though only by a hair's breadth, the Austrian Foreign Office -was telephoning to the Foreign Office in Berlin the text of Serbia's -reply. - -A certain journalist was on his way to the telegraph office to "file" -his "story." The editor of a great Vienna newspaper, a friend, -intercepted him. - -"Well, what are you saying?" the editor inquired. "That it's peace, -after all," replied the correspondent. - -"It _was_ peace," said the editor sadly, "but meantime Berlin has -spoken." - - - * * * * * - - -The week of fate opened on Monday, July 27, amid general expectations -that the worst had become inevitable. Popular alarm was not assuaged by -the impulsive action of the Kaiser, contrary to the preferences of the -Government, in breaking off his Norwegian cruise when Serbia's defiance -was wirelessed to the _Hohenzollern_ and rushing back to Kiel under full -steam. "The Foreign Office regrets this step," reported Sir Horace -Rumbold, acting British Ambassador at Berlin, to Sir Edwin Grey. "It -was taken on His Majesty's own initiative and the Foreign Office fears -that the Emperor's sudden return may cause speculation and excitement." -It was, of course, characteristic of the monarch whom Paul Singer, the -late Socialist chieftain, once described to me as "William the Sudden." -"Speculation and excitement" are precisely what the Kaiser's dramatic -return did precipitate. He did not come into Berlin, but retired to the -comparative privacy of the New Palace in Potsdam, to engage forthwith in -protracted council with his political, diplomatic, military and naval -advisers. Meantime Berlin throbbed with forebodings and unrest. The -Stock Exchange almost collapsed. Values tumbled by the millions of -marks. Fortunes vanished between breakfast and lunch. Financiers -suicided. Savings banks were besieged by battalions of nervous -depositors. Gold began to disappear from circulation. - -At the Foreign Office, newspaper correspondents were informed that the -situation was undoubtedly aggravated, but not "hopeless." Germany's aim -was to "localize" the Austrian-Serbian war, which was now an actuality. -"All depends on Russia," Herr Hammann's automatons assured us when we -asked who held the key to the situation. Germany remained, as she had -been from the beginning of the crisis, merely "an interested bystander." -Austria had not sought her counsel, and "none had been offered." It -would have been an insufferable offense (said the Hammannites) for -Berlin to intrude upon Vienna with "advice" at such an hour. Austria -was a great sovereign Power, Count Berchtold a diplomat of sagacity and -courage, and Germany's rôle was obviously that of a silent friend. She -had very particularly "not been concerned" with the admittedly stiff -terms the rejection of which had now, unhappily, resulted in war. All -this we were told at Wilhelmstrasse 76 in accents of touching sincerity. - -The attitude of the German public was now one of amazing resignation to -the possibility of war. Men of affairs, who had during the preceding -forty-eight hours in many cases seen great fortunes irresistibly -slipping from their grasp, contemplated a European conflagration with -incredible equanimity. I recall with especial distinctness the views -expressed by my old friend, Geheimrat L., the head of an important -provincial bank. "We have not sought war," he said, "but we are ready -for it--far readier than any of our possible antagonists. Our -preparedness, military, naval, financial and economic, is in the most -complete state it has ever attained. Confidence in the army and navy is -unbounded, and it is justified. For years the political atmosphere has -been growing more and more uncomfortable for Germany (Geheimrat L. -evidently longed for "a place in the sun," too), and we have felt that -war was inevitable, sooner or later. It is better that it comes now, -when our strength is at the zenith, than later when our enemies have had -time to discount our superiority." Geheimrat L. and I were standing in -_Unter den Linden_ while he talked. Another procession of war-zealots -tramped by, singing _Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_. "You see," -he said, pointing to the demonstrators and waving his own hat as the -crowd shrieked "_Hoch der Kaiser!_", "we all feel the same way." -Germany, in other words, while not exactly spoiling for war, was -something more than ready for it and would leap into the ring, stripped -for the combat, almost before the gong had called time. Events did not -belie that fantasy, either. - -Sir Edward Grey was now making eleventh-hour efforts to stave off fate. -He was constrained to have Vienna view the Serbian imbroglio from the -broad standpoint of a European question, which the Germanic Powers, of -course, knew that it was. He proposed a conference in London between -himself and the ambassadors of Germany, Russia, France and Italy, in the -hope of settling the Austrian-Serbian dispute on the basis of Serbia's -reply to Count Berchtold's ultimatum. "It has become only too apparent," -the British Foreign Secretary wrote a year later in a crushing rejoinder -to the German Chancellor's revamped and distorted version of the war's -beginnings, "that in the proposal we made, which Russia, France and -Italy agreed to, and which Germany vetoed, lay the only hope of peace. -And it was such a good hope! Serbia had accepted nearly all of the -Austrian ultimatum, severe and violent as it was." Herr Hammann's -minions told us with pleasing plausibility of the reasons why Germany -declined the conference proposal. "We can not recommend Austria," they -said, "to submit questions affecting her national honor to a tribunal of -outsiders. It would not be consistent with our obligations as an ally." -That was subterfuge unalloyed, as was amply proved by Germany's -subsequent refusal even to suggest any other method of mediation, in -which Sir Edward Grey had promised acquiescence in advance. The War -Party's plans were plainly too far progressed to tolerate so tame and -inglorious a retreat. It was thirsting for blood, and was in no humor -to content itself with milk and water. It was like asking a champion -runner, trained to the second and poised on the starting tape in an -attitude of trembling expectation of the "Go" pistol, to rise, return to -the dressing-room, get into street clothes and cool his ardor for -victory and laurels by taking a leisurely walk around the block. The -Tirpitzes, the Falkehhayns, the Reventlows, the Bernhardis and the Crown -Princes, lurking Mephistopheles-like in the background, leaned over -Bethmann Hollweg and the Kaiser on July 28, while Sir Edward Grey's -proposal was undergoing final consideration, and whispered in their ear -an imperious "No!" Germany, as "evidence of good faith," the -Wilhelmstrasse told us next day, was continuing to exercise friendly -pressure "in the direction of peace" at both St. Petersburg and Vienna. -But, as the Colonel said of Mr. Taft, Berlin meant well feebly. The -mills of the war gods were grinding remorselessly, and they were not to -be clogged. - -Early in the evening of Wednesday, July 29, the Kaiser summoned a -council of war at Potsdam. The council lasted far into the night. Dawn -of Thursday was approaching before it ended. All the great paladins of -State, civilian, military and naval, were present. Prince Henry of -Prussia, freshly arrived from London, brought the latest tidings of -sentiment prevailing in England. The Imperial Chancellor and Foreign -Secretary von Jagow were armed with up-to-the-minute news of the -diplomatic situation in Paris and St. Petersburg. Russia's plans and -movements were the all-dominating issue. General von Falkenhayn, -Minister of War, was prepared with confidential information that, -despite the Czar's ostensible desire for peace and his still pending -communication with the Kaiser to that end, "military measures and -dispositions" of unmistakably menacing character were in progress on -both the German and Austrian frontiers. Lieutenant-General von Moltke, -Chief of the General Staff, was supplied not only with corroborative -information of the imminency of "danger" from Russia, but with -reassuring details of Germany's power to meet and check it. -Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz, Secretary of the Navy, and Admiral von Pohl, -Chief of the Admiralty Staff, were ready to convince the Supreme War -Lord that the fleet was no less prepared than the army for any and all -emergencies. There was absolutely nothing, from a military and naval -standpoint, so the generals and admirals were eager to demonstrate, to -justify Germany in assuming and maintaining anything but "a strong -position." - -Some day, perhaps, the history of that fateful night at Potsdam will be -written, for there was Armageddon born. Its full details have never -leaked out. So much I believe can be here set down with certainty--it -was not quite a harmonious council which finally plumped for war. At -the outset, at any rate, it was divided into camps which found -themselves in diametrical opposition. The "peace party," or what was -left of it, is said, loath as the world is to believe it, to have been -headed by the Kaiser himself. Bethmann Hollweg supported his Imperial -Master's view that war should only be resorted to as a last desperate -emergency. Von Jagow, the innocuous Foreign Secretary, dancing as usual -to his superiors' whistle, "sided" with the Emperor and the Chancellor. -Von Falkenhayn and von Tirpitz demanded war. Germany was ready; her -adversaries were not; the issue was plain. Von Moltke was non-committal. -He is a Christian Scientist, and otherwise pacific by temperament. -Prince Henry of Prussia did not at least violently insist upon peace. I -could never verify whether the German Crown Prince was permitted to -participate in the war council or not. If he was, posterity may be sure -that his influence was not exercised unduly in the direction of a -bloodless solution of the crisis. Herr Kühn, the Secretary of the -Treasury, submitted satisfying figures to prove that, if war must be, -Germany was financially caparisoned. From Herr Ballin came word that if -war should unhappily be forced upon the Fatherland by the bear, the -present positions of German liners were such that few, if any, of them -would fall certain prey to enemy cruisers. Those which could not reach -home ports would be able to take refuge in snug neutral harbors. - -The next day, Thursday, July 30, I was able to telegraph my chiefs in -London and New York that the fat was now almost irrevocably in the fire. -The War Party's views had prevailed. The fiction that "Russian -mobilization" was an intolerable peril which Germany could no longer -face in inactivity had been so assiduously maintained that any -reluctance to go to war, which may have lingered in the Kaiser's soul, -was now overcome. The sword had literally been "forced" into his hand. -Russia, it was decided, was to be notified that demobilization or German -"counter-mobilization" within twenty-four hours was the choice she had -to make. My information went considerably beyond this so-called "last -German effort on behalf of peace." It was to the effect that while -Germany had taken "one more final step" in the direction of an amicable -solution of the crisis, _she did not really expect it to be successful, -and had, indeed, resorted to it merely in order to be able to say that -she had "left no stone unturned to prevent war_." - -Germany was now in everything except a formally proclaimed state of war. -Mobilization was not actually "ordered," but all the multitudinous -preliminaries for it were well under way. As later developed, German -reservists from far-off Southwest Africa were at that very moment en -route to Europe on suddenly granted "leaves of absence." The terrible -button at whose signal the German war machine would move was all but -pressed. To prove it the super-patriotic, Government-controlled -_Lokal-Anzeiger_ let a woefully tell-tale cat out of the bag. It issued -a lurid "Extra" at two-thirty P.M., categorically announcing that "the -entire German army and navy had been ordered to mobilize." After the -news had spread through Berlin like wildfire and sent prices on the -Bourse tobogganing toward the bottom at the dizziest pace of all the -week, the _Lokal-Anzeiger_ twenty minutes later blandly issued another -"Extra," explaining that through "a gross misdemeanor in its circulating -department" the public had been furnished with "inaccurate news" about -mobilization! - -The good "_Lokal's_" news was not "inaccurate." It was only premature, -for twenty-four hours later, on Friday, July 31, it was permitted, along -with other papers, to flood the metropolis with another "Extra," -officially proclaiming that Emperor William had declared Germany to be -in a "state of war." The "Extras" added that the Kaiser would himself -shortly arrive in Berlin from Potsdam. No one doubted now that the -Fatherland was on the brink of grim and portentous events. War might -only be a matter of hours, perhaps minutes. Instantaneously all roads -led to _Unter den Linden_. Through it, now _Oberster Kriegsherr_ -indeed--Supreme War Lord is not an ironical sobriquet foisted upon the -German Emperor by detractors, as many people think, but an actual, -formal title--the Kaiser would soon be passing. History was to be made -to repeat itself. Old King William I, returning to Berlin from Ems on -the eve of the Franco-Prussian War made a spectacular entrance into -Berlin under identical circumstances. The welcome to his grandson must -be no less imposing and immortal. - -I was fortunate enough to secure a reserved seat in the grandstand--a -table on the balcony of the Café Kranzler at the intersection of -Friedrichstrasse and the Linden. The boulevard was jammed. All Berlin -seemed gathered in it. Presently the triple-toned motor horn of the -Imperial automobile tooted from afar the signal that the Kaiser was -approaching. A tornado of cheers and _Hochs_ greeted him all along the -_Via Triumphalis_. The Empress, at his side, smiled in token of the -most spontaneous welcome the Kaiser ever received at the hands of his -never overfond Berliners. The brass-helmeted War Lord himself was the -personification of gravity. His favorite pose in public is -uncompromising sternness; to-day it was the last word in severity. He -did not seem a happy man, nor even so haughty as I always imagined he -would be in the midst of war delirium. It was an unmistakably anxious -Kaiser who entered his capital on that afternoon of deathless memory. - -The Imperial show, smacking strongly of William's own stage management, -had only begun, for now the Crown Prince's familiar motor signal, -_Ta-tee, Ta-ta_, sounded from the direction of Brandenburg Gate, and -presently he came along, with the beauteous and all-captivating Crown -Princess Cecelie at his side. Squatting between them, saluting solemnly -in sailor-suit, was their eldest son, the eight-year-old Kaiser-to-be. -The ebullition of the crowd in _Unter den Linden_ knew no bounds at the -sight of the Crown Prince, for years Berlin's darling. In striking -contrast to the Kaiser's solemnity was his heir's smile-wreathed face, -which, in the picturesque German idiom, was literally _freudestrahlend_ -(radiant of joy). The specter of war was obviously not depressing the -Colonel of the Death's Head Hussars. He beamed and grinned in boyish -happiness as the mob surged round his car so insistently that for a -minute it could not proceed. Right and left he stretched out his arm to -shake hands with the frenzied demonstrators nearest him. The Crown -Princess shared her consort's manifest pleasure, while the princeling -saluted tirelessly. Then other cars whirled by, containing Prince and -Princess August Wilhelm of Prussia and the remaining Princes, the sailor -Adalbert, and Eitel Friedrich, Joachim and Oscar. The Hohenzollern -soldier-family picture was to be complete at this immortal hour. Now -there was a fresh outburst of acclamation almost as volcanic as that -which greeted the Crown Prince. Admiral Prince Henry, in navy blue and -steering his own automobile, was passing. The Kaiser's brother is very -dear to the popular heart in Germany. As the Crown Prince typifies the -army, so Prince Henry stands for the navy. The procession was brought up -by the funereal Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg. For him the cheering was -only desultory, as he is not a familiar figure, and many of the crowd -obviously had no notion who the worried-looking old gentleman in silk -hat and frock coat might be. - -[Illustration: Soldiers in the making--aiming practice] - -The throngs now streamed toward the Royal Castle in the confident hope -that William the Speechmaker would not disappoint them. About six -o'clock in the evening their patience and _Hochs_ were rewarded. -Surrounded by the members of his family, the Kaiser appeared at the -balcony window facing the Cathedral across the _Lustgarten_ (this was -more of the 1870 precedent) and, looking down upon the densest and most -fervent crowd of his subjects he ever faced, addressed to them in the -guttural, jerky, but wonderfully far-reaching tones which are his -oratorical style, the following homily: - -"A fateful hour has fallen upon Germany. Envious people on all sides -are compelling us to resort to just defense. The sword is being forced -into our hand. If at the last hour my efforts do not succeed in -maintaining peace, I hope that with God's help we shall so wield the -sword that we shall be able to sheathe it with honor. - -"War would demand of us enormous sacrifices in blood and treasure, but -we shall show our foes what it means to provoke Germany, and now I -commend you all to God. Go to church, kneel before God, and pray to Him -to help our gallant army." - - -Berlin went to bed on the night of July 31 hoarse with _Hoching_ and -footsore from standing and marching, but now indubitably certain that -events were impending which would try the Fatherland's soul as it had -never been tried before. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - WAR - - -"The Russian mobilization menace!" That was the great myth now -irrevocably fastened on the German mind. "The Cossacks at our gate!" -Thus was the Fatherland gulled by its war zealots into the belief that -the tide of blood sweeping down from the East could no longer be -stemmed. German war history was repeating itself. As 1870 was born in -deceit, so was 1914. Bismarck doctored the Ems telegram forty-four -years previous to extenuate the assault on France, and now the "Russian -mobilization menace," the Cossack bogy, was invented as justification -for precipitating and popularizing the conflict on which the Prussian -War Party's heart was set. A "state of war" had been decreed by the -Kaiser in accordance with the paragraph of the Imperial Constitution -which authorizes him to declare martial law whenever the domains of the -Empire or any part of them are in jeopardy. The Czar's hordes were -gathered on the Eastern frontier, preparing to launch a murderous, -burglarious attack on innocent, defenseless, peace-loving Germany. They -had done more than that--and here was another Hohenzollern 1870 analogy; -the Emperor of all the Russias had "insulted" the Kaiser by feloniously -massing his legions on the German border while William II, at Nicholas' -own request, was "working for peace." It was a pretty story, and German -public opinion, shrewdly prepared, swallowed it whole. Germans, their -Emperor's "honor" and their own safety now at stake, approved fervidly -the ultimatum which they were told had been presented at St. Petersburg, -demanding abandonment of the Czar's "provocative" military measures. - -I have too much respect for the perfected might of the Teutonic -war-machine to believe that any German soldier worthy of the name ever -considered Russian military movements along the Prussian and Austrian -frontiers at the end of July, 1914, a "menace." It was only a fortnight -previous that the _German Military Gazette_, the official army organ, -had laughed the whole Russian army out of court as an organization -hardly worthy of Prussian steel. Now the transfer of half a dozen -Russian corps had become so vast a peril as to necessitate plunging the -whole German Empire into a "state of war!" Everybody who had eyes to -see and ears to hear in Germany, native and foreigner alike, always knew -that actual mobilization in that country was the merest formality. The -Germans were always ready for war. It was their commonest boast. A -high officer of the General Staff, twenty-four hours after Serbia's -rejection of the Austrian ultimatum, when asked _how_ ready Germany was -for eventualities, said, sententiously, "_All_ ready." My Junker -friend, Von G., of Kiel, himself a Prussian officer, would have snorted -with scornful glee if I had ever suggested to him that _any_ Russian -military measures could really "menace" Germany. He knew what I knew, -and what anybody with sense in Germany always understood, that, compared -to what the Fatherland with its comprehensive system of -military-controlled state railways could achieve in the way of final -"mobilization," Russia would require weeks where Germany would need only -days, or even hours. Germany would be like Texas, criss-crossed in every -direction with faultless means of communication and crammed with troops -and munitions, mobilizing against the rest of the United States, with -the latter having to concentrate armies on the Rio Grande from Florida, -Maine, Oregon and Lower California, and a shoe-string railway system -with which to do it. The "Russian mobilization menace" was Germany's -supreme bluff. - -St. Petersburg had been given until twelve o'clock noon of Saturday, -August 1, to "demobilize." Failing to do so, Germany would be -"compelled to resort to a counter-mobilization." France had been called -upon to indicate what her attitude would be in case of a Russo-German -conflict, but the ultimatum to Paris, we understood, had no time limit -attached. All knew that the great decision rested essentially in -Russia's hands; that war with the Czar meant war with the French, too. -Twelve o'clock Berlin time came and went without word of any kind from -Count Pourtales, the Kaiser's ambassador in St. Petersburg. The Emperor -and his civil, military and naval advisers were closeted in a Crown -council at the Castle. Pourtales' message, if there was one, the -Foreign Office told us, would doubtless reach the Kaiser in the midst of -the council, which was a continuous one. Berlin waited in excruciating -impatience. The Bourse writhed in panic. Bankers met to consider -closing it altogether, but decided that the worst might be avoided by -limiting transactions to spot-cash deals. The air was electric with -rumor. Russia had asked for a further period of grace, one heard. -Hope, report said, while slender, was not yet utterly vanished. - -The afternoon passed in almost insufferable anxiety. _Unter den Linden_ -and the _Lustgarten_, the sprawling area around the Castle, were choked -with people tense with expectancy. Dread, rather than war fervor, -inspired them. About five-twenty o'clock, after one of the daily -heart-to-heart war talks I had been privileged to hold over the teacups -with Mrs. Gerard, I drove through the Wilhelmstrasse toward the Linden, -accompanied by my English colleague, Charles Tower, Berlin -representative of the _New York World_ and _London Daily News_. I do -not suppose the historic little spectacle was specially arranged in our -honor, but as a matter of fact we happened to pass the Foreign Office at -the very instant that Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg, grave with -inconcealable worry, was entering a plebeian taxicab. He was evidently -starting out on a transcendent mission, for he held in his hand a -document of such absorbing interest that he hardly raised his eyes from -it as he clambered into the cab. Accompanying him were Foreign Secretary -von Jagow and a military _aide-de-camp_. I blush to confess that Tower -and I were filled with such overweening curiosity to find out what that -ominous parchment contained, and where the Chancellor was taking it, -that we ordered our chauffeur to follow at not too respectful a -distance. I never saw a Berlin taxi tear through the heart of the -down-town district so madly as Bethmann Hollweg scorched down the -Behren-strasse, past the banks which line Germany's Wall Street and the -back of the Opera, into Französische-strasse, over the little bridge -which spans the canal, and into the southern esplanade of the castle. -Only small crowds were gathered at this point, and the Chancellor's cab -swung past the sentries and through the big Neptune Gate of the -_Schloss_ almost unnoticed. Now instinctively certain of the nature of -Bethmann Hollweg's errand, Tower and I made our way to the _Lustgarten_, -since early morning an endless vista of faces stretching nearly all the -way from the Dom to the Brandenburg Gate end of _Unter den Linden_, a -mile to the west. We felt sure that the universally awaited Order of -Mobilization might be momentarily expected. As events developed, that -was the document which we had seen the Chancellor taking to the Kaiser. -It was six o'clock. The doleful chimes of the Cathedral across from the -Castle were summoning the people to the service of intercession ordained -by the Emperor earlier in the day. Solemnity hung over the multitude -like a pall. Men and women knew now that Russia's answer, or lack of -answer, whichever it might be, meant war, not peace. They had not long -to wait for confirmatory news. As soon as word was telephoned to the -Wolff Agency, the official news bureau, that the Imperial signature had -at length been officially given--that the sword was now, literally and -beyond recall, "forced" into William II's hands--the newspapers, which -had had sufficient advance information for their purposes, drenched the -capital with _Extrablätter_ containing the fateful tidings: - - +----------------------------------+ - | | - | "UNIVERSAL MOBILIZATION OF THE | - | GERMAN ARMY AND NAVY!" | - | | - +----------------------------------+ - -Another two lines explained, breathlessly, that an order to that effect -had just been promulgated by the Supreme War Lord. The twelve-hour -period which Germany had granted to Russia for "the making of a loyal -declaration" had been ignored. To-morrow, added the chief announcement -in the most portentous _Extrablatt_ a German newspaper ever issued, -would be the first mobilization day. All Sunday, Monday and Tuesday the -_Furor Teutonicus_ would be busy donning shining armor. The deed was -done. "Gentlemen," the Kaiser is said to have remarked to Moltke, -Falkenhayn and the rest of the military clique, after affixing his -signature to the document which meant not only mobilization, but war, -"you will live to regret this." - -In the midst of our exclusively German environment in those immortal -hours--we could now neither telegraph nor telephone in anything except -German, nor even read in anything except that language, for foreign -newspapers were no longer arriving--I must confess I was filled with no -little prepossession in Germany's favor. The Kaiser's case seemed not -only good. On the biased evidence available--we had, of course, no -other--it even seemed strong. Such fragmentary dispatches from abroad -as the Military Censor, already enthroned, permitted to be printed were -naturally only those which resolutely bolstered up the fiction of "our -just cause." Of the stealthy plot to violate Belgium we had no glimmer -of an inkling. We knew only of the "Russian mobilization menace," of -the Kaiser's wrecked efforts in the direction of "peace," and of the -reluctance with which impeccable Germany was stripping for the fray in -defense of her honor, rights and imperiled territorial integrity. -Convinced as I had long been of the War Party's lust for "the Day," a -setting appeared to have been contrived which put Germany in a -plausible, if not altogether blameless, light. It was mass-suggestion, -as a Berlin psychologist would describe it, all-hypnotizing in its -effects. It was not until five days afterward, when I had crossed the -German frontier, reached Dutch territory and come up with the truth that -the curtain was lifted and I could look out upon what seemed, after ten -days of "inspired" information in Berlin, like country which my eyes had -never seen before.... - -[Illustration: In front of the Royal Castle, Berlin, waiting for -announcement of mobilization, August 1st, 1914.] - -The Mobilization Order tore through the capital with the velocity and -the shock of a shell. Expected, it yet stunned. The throng before the -Castle still sang _Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_ and cheered for -the Kaiser, and desultory processions of young men and boys still -marched hither and thither across the town. But an atmosphere of -soberness and grim reality now descended upon Berlin. The street-corner -pillars which serve as bill-boards in Germany were already splashed red -with the official decree, gazetting August 2, 3 and 4 as the days when -the Kaiser's subjects, liable for military service with the first line -(Reserve), must report at long-appointed assembly depots, don long-ready -uniforms, and march each to his long-designated place in the -long-prepared war. Almost simultaneously the telegraph, now like the -railway and postal services automatically passed into military control, -brought every reservist in the realm definite information as to where -and when he was expected to present himself. The magic system which -Roon devised for hurling Germany's legions across the Rhine in '70 was -once again in mechanical, yet noiseless, motion. Sheer jubilation, the -grand-stand patriotism with which Berlin had reverberated for a week, -died out. There were good-bys to be said now, long good-bys, and affairs -to be wound up. The iron business of war was waiting to be attended to. -The crowds in _Unter den Linden_ and the _Lustgarten_ melted homeward, -silently, immersed in anxious reflection. Before they waked from their -next sleep, the first shot might be fired. On what new paths had the -Fatherland entered? Would they lead to death or glory? Never before, I -imagine, was the modern German, in his inimitable idiom, given so -furiously to think. - -The war began early Sunday morning, August 2. Before nine o'clock -"Extras" were in the streets with the following official news, the very -first bulletin of the war: - - -"Up to 4 o'clock this morning the Great General Staff has received the -following reports: - -"1. During the night Russian patrols made an attack on the railway -bridge over the Warthe near Eichenried (East Prussia). The attack was -repulsed. On the German side, two slightly wounded. Russian losses -unknown. An attempted attack by the Russians on the railway station at -Miloslaw was frustrated. - -"2. The station master at Johannisburg and the forestry authorities at -Bialla report that during last night (1st to 2nd) Russian columns in -considerable strength, with guns, crossed the frontier near Schwidden -(southeast of Bialla) and that two squadrons of Cossacks are riding in -the direction of Johannisburg. The telephone communication between Lyck -and Bialla is broken down. - -"According to the above, Russia has attacked German Imperial territory -and begun the war." - - -The "Russian mobilization menace" was now an accomplished fact, and the -Cossack bogy, too, converted into an officially hall-marked actuality! - -Modern war, from the newspaperman's standpoint, consists principally of -two things--censorship and rumors. Both had now set in with a -vengeance. The first day in Berlin swarmed with irresponsible report. -People believed anything. Official news was scarce and "far between." -The second General Staff bulletin to be issued was a laconic -announcement that troops of the VIII (Rhenish) army corps had occupied -Luxemburg "for the protection of German railways in the Grand Duchy." -Eydtkuhnen, the famous German frontier station opposite the Russian -border town of Wirballen, was now reported occupied by Russian cavalry -detachments. A Russian had been caught in the act of trying to blow up -the Thorn railway bridge. Now France--like Russia, "without declaration -of war"--had violated the sacredness of German territory. French -aviators had flown into Bavaria and dropped bombs in the neighborhood of -Nuremberg, evidently with the intent of destroying military railway -lines. Canard succeeded canard. The famed "German war on two fronts" -was no longer a figment of the imagination. It had become immutable -fact. Monsieur Sverbieff, the Czar's ambassador, we heard, had already -received his passports. He would leave Berlin in the evening in a -special train to the Russian frontier. When would Monsieur Cambon, the -French ambassador, the Republic's accomplished representative in -Washington during our war with Spain, be given _his_ walking-papers? So -far rowdies had yelled _Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_ only in -front of the Russian Embassy. Now that French airmen had shelled -Bavaria, how long would it be before the chateau in Pariser Platz would -be stormed? - -The British Embassy was wrapped in Sabbath calm. Was not Berlin reading -with intensest gratification the Wolff Agency's carefully selected -London dispatches saying that "powerful influences are at work to -prevent England becoming involved in the war"? Mr. Norman Angell had -written in that sense to _The Times_--the _Lokal-Anzeiger_ reported with -undisguised satisfaction. A large number of British professors, it -added, had launched a "protest" against war with Germany, "the leader in -art and science and against whom a war for Russia and Serbia would be a -crime against civilization." A "great and influential meeting of -Liberals in the Reform Club" had adopted resolutions commending Sir -Edward Grey's efforts on behalf of peace and "energetically demanding -the strict preservation of English neutrality." The Germans took heart. -Blandly ignorant of their Government's secret diplomatic schemings, now -in frantic progress, to keep Great Britain out of the fray, they were -lulled by their rulers and doctored press reports into thinking that the -danger of interference from the other side of the North Sea was as good -as non-existent. The German Imperial Government practised this -deception on their own people till the last possible moment. German -newspaper readers, in those fitful hours, were being led to believe that -the voice of Britain was the pacifist, pro-German voice of Radicalism as -represented by journals like _The Daily News, Westminster Gazette_ and -_The Nation_. No intimation was permitted to reach the German public -that voices like _The Times, The Observer, The Daily Mail, The Morning -Post_ and _Daily Telegraph_ were calling for the only action by the -Government consonant with British honor and British rights. The -outburst of fanatical rage against the "perfidious sister nation" so -soon to ensue was mainly due, I shall always remain convinced, to the -diabolical swindle of which the German nation was the victim at the -hands of its dark-lantern diplomatists. In that far-off day when the -scales have fallen from Teutonic eyes, I predict that the Germans will -call for vengeance on their deceivers. As they were duped about Russia, -so were they deliberately misled about England. - -Before the war was half a day old the spy mania, which was destined to -be one of the most amazing symptoms of the war's early hours, was raging -madly from one end of the country to the other. It was directly -inspired and encouraged by the Government. The authorities caused it to -be known that "according to reliable news" Russian officers and secret -agents infested the Fatherland "in great numbers." "The security of the -German Empire," the people were informed, "demands absolutely that in -addition to the regular official organs, _the entire population_ should -give vent to its patriotic sentiments by co-operating in the -apprehension of such dangerous persons." "By active and restless -vigilance," continued this official incitement to lynch law, "everybody -can in his own way contribute toward a successful result of the war." -It was not to be expected that a nation so idolatrous of officialdom as -the Germans could possibly resist this _carte-blanche_ permit to every -man to play the rôle of an avenging sleuth. The inevitable result was -that Germany became in a flash the scene of a nation-wide "drive" for -spies, real or imaginary. Anybody who was either known to be a Russian -or remotely suspected of being one, or who even looked like a Russian, -was in imminent danger of his life. Now the notorious story of -"poisoning of wells in Alsace by French army surgeons" was circulated. -"Hunt for French spies!" promptly read the newest invitation to mob -violence. Weird "news" began to fill the _Extrablätter_. A "Russian -spy" had been caught in _Unter den Linden_, masquerading as a German -naval officer. After being beaten into insensibility, he was dragged to -Spandau and shot. In another part of town a couple of Russian "secret -agents," disguised as women, were caught with "basketfuls of bombs." -They, too, we learned, were riddled with bullets an hour later at -Spandau. Everywhere, in and out of Berlin, the spy-hunt was now in full -cry. An automobile, in which women were traveling, was "reported" to be -crossing the country, en route to Russia with "millions of francs of -gold." The whole rural population of Prussia turned out to intercept -it. - -One of the earliest victims of the espionage epidemic was an American -newspaperman, Seymour Beach Conger, the chief Berlin correspondent of -the Associated Press, who had started for St. Petersburg, where he was -formerly stationed, as soon as war became imminent, only to be arrested -by the spy-hunting Prussian police at Gumbinnen on the charge of being -"a Russian grand-duke." Conger's United States passport, unmistakable -journalistic credentials, well-known official status in Berlin and -convincingly American exterior availed him not. He had plenty of money -and a kodak, and that was enough. He must be a spy. For three days and -nights he was locked in a cell, and, even after he had contrived to -establish communication with the American Embassy in Berlin, he had -great difficulty in securing his release. It was eventually granted on -the understanding that he should ignore the Associated Press' orders to -proceed to Russia and remain in Berlin for the rest of the war, where, I -believe, he still is. I was told, but could never verify, that one of -the conditions of Conger's liberation was that he should not "talk -about" the affair. - -How many hapless persons, Russians, French or unfortunates suspected of -being such, with nothing in the world against them more incriminating -than their real or imagined nationality, were put out of the way either -by German mob savagery, police brutality or fortress firing-squads in -those opening forty-eight hours of Armageddon will probably never be -known. I do not suppose the Germans themselves know. But this _I_ -know--that even at that earliest stage of their sanguinary game they -conducted themselves in a manner which, had they done no other single -thing during the war to stagger humanity, would brand them as a race of -semi-barbarians. _Kultur_ gave a sorry account of itself in the -Hottentot days between August 2 and 5, of which I shall have more to -say, of a peculiarly personal nature, in a succeeding chapter. - -War Sunday in Berlin, midst rumor and spy-chasing, was marked by an -impressive open-air divine service on the Konigs-Platz, that vast -quadrangle of spread-eagle statuary and gingerbread architecture in -which the sepulchral "Avenue of Victory" culminates. In the great area -between the Column of Victory and the bulky Bismarck memorial at the -foot of the gilt-domed Reichstag building a concourse of many thousands -gathered to hear a court chaplain, Doctor Dohring, sermonize eloquently -on a text from the Revelation of St. John, chapter II, verse 10: "Be -thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." It was -a singularly appropriate theme, for hundreds of reservists, their last -day in citizens' clothes, were in the throng. There was a moment of -indescribable pathos, as the chaplain, from a dais which raised him high -above the heads of the multitude, invoked the huge congregation to -recite with him the Lord's Prayer. Strong men and women were in tears -when the Amen was reached. The service was brought to a close with a -beautiful rendition by that mighty chorus of the _Niederländisches -Dankgebet_, the famous hymn which proclaimed at Waterloo a century -before the end of the Napoleonic terror. - -Nightfall found those seemingly immobile Berlin thousands still -clustered, now almost beseechingly, round the Royal Castle. They -hungered for an opportunity to show the Supreme War Lord that Kaiser and -Empire were dearer than ever to German hearts in the hour of imminent -trial. Just before dark, while his outlines could still be plainly -distinguished even by the rearmost ranks of the crowd, William II, -thunderously greeted, stepped out once more to the balcony from which he -had told the populace two nights previous that the sword was being -"forced" into his hand. He beckoned for silence. Men reverently removed -their hats, and leaned forward on tiptoes, the better to hear the -Imperial message. This is what the Kaiser said: - - -"From the bottom of my heart I thank you for the expression of your love -and your loyalty. In the struggle now impending I know no more parties -among my people. There are now only Germans among us. Whichever -parties, in the heat of political differences, may have turned against -me, I now forgive from the depths of my heart. The thing now is that -all should stand together, shoulder to shoulder, like brothers, and then -God will help the German sword to victory!" - - -No historian of Germany in war-time will be able to say that his people -did not take the Kaiser's stirring admonition to heart. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - THE AMERICANS - - -On the occasion, nine or ten years ago, when it was my privilege to be -presented for the first time to that most sane and suave of German -statesmen, Prince Bülow--it was at one of his so-called "parliamentary -evenings" at the Imperial Chancellor's Palace during the political -season,--he inquired, pleasantly: - -"How long are you remaining in Germany?" - -"Just as long as Your Serene Highness will permit," I responded, half -facetiously and half seriously, for foreign correspondents are -occasionally expelled from Germany for pernicious professional activity. - -For the ten days preceding August 1, 1914, while the European cloudburst -was gathering momentum, such time as I could spare from the chase for -the nimble item was devoted to patching up my journalistic fences in -Berlin, with a view to remaining there throughout the war. There was at -that time no conclusive indication that England would be involved. -Having seen Germany in full and magnificent stride in peace, I was -overwhelmingly anxious to watch her in the practise of her real -profession. As an American citizen and special correspondent of three -great American newspapers--the _New York Times, Philadelphia Public -Ledger_ and _Chicago Tribune_--and fully accredited as such in German -official quarters, I had every reason to hope that, even if England were -drawn into the war (as to which I, myself, was never in doubt), my -previous status as Berlin correspondent of Lord Northcliffe's _Daily -Mail_ would not interfere with my remaining in Germany as an American -writing exclusively for American papers. It was, of course, obvious -that if this permission were granted me, my connection with the British -news organization, which for years was Germany's _bête noire_, would -have automatically to cease. - -In Ambassador Gerard, as ever, I found a ready supporter of my plans. -He recognized, as I did, that a "_Daily Mail_ man," particularly one who -had specialized, as I did for eight years, in publishing as much as I -dared about Germany's palpable preparations for war, would perhaps be on -thin ice in asking favors of the Kaiser's Government at such an hour. -But Judge Gerard also knew that, while persistently doing my duty in -reporting the sleepless machinations of the German War Party to attain -"a place in the sun," I had written copiously in England and with equal -faithfulness of the many attractive and favorable aspects of German life -and institutions. In 1913 I produced a little book, _Men Around the -Kaiser_, which from cover to cover was a sincere hymn of praise of -almost everything Teutonic. This foreigner's tribute to the real source -of modern German greatness--the Fatherland's captains of science, art, -letters, commerce, finance and industry--was considered so fair and -flattering to the Germans that _Männer um den Kaiser_, a German -translation, went through eight editions to the two of the English -original. During the Zabern army upheaval in Alsace-Lorraine in the -winter of 1913-14 an article of mine in _The Daily Mail_ entitled "What -the Colonel Said" was the only presentation of the German military -attitude published in England. Even the War Party newspapers in Berlin -honored me with a reproduction of that attempt to interpret the Prussian -point of view that, where the sacredness of the King's tunic is at -stake, all other considerations vanish into insignificance. - -The Ambassador suggested, in the always practical way of American -diplomacy, that I should assemble for him a _dossier_ of some of my -newspaper work in Berlin showing that I had consistently attempted to -show the bright, as well as the dark side, of the German picture. Judge -Gerard promised to submit my desire to remain in Germany during war, if -war came, to Foreign Secretary von Jagow and to recommend that my -aspiration should be gratified. It was welcome news which the -Ambassador was finally enabled to give me on August 1, that the Foreign -Secretary had considered my application and granted it. I rejoiced that -a long-cherished ambition seemed on the brink of realization--to see the -terrible German war-machine at work, to report its sanguinary operations -from the inside, and perhaps some day to record in a book, which would -have been incomparably more vital than this bloodless narrative, my -close-range impressions of man-killing as an applied art. - -I was not the only American appealing to our Embassy for amelioration of -my troubles about this time. In fact there were so many others--hundreds -and hundreds of them--that the Ambassador and his small staff ceased -altogether to be diplomats and became merely comforters of distracted -compatriots plunged suddenly into the abyss of terror and helplessness -in a strange land by the specter of war. From early morning till long -past midnight Wilhelms Platz 7, the dignified home maintained by the -Gerards as American headquarters in Germany, was besieged by a mob of -stranded or semi-stranded fellow citizens who flocked to the Embassy -like chicks running to cover beneath the protecting wing of a mother -hen. Never even in the history of Cook's was so frantic a conclave of -the personally conducted assembled. They wanted two things and wanted -them at once--money and facilities to get out of Germany with the least -possible delay. That bespectacled school-marm from Paducah, Kentucky, -had not come to Berlin to eat war bread and spend her spare time proving -her identity at the police station--she moaned in tearful accents. That -aldermanic committee of Battle Creek, Michigan, was not getting what it -bargained for--study of Berlin's sewage farms and municipal labor -exchanges. Its main concern now was to reach Dutch or Scandinavian -territory, with the minimum of procrastination. That portly Chicago -millionaire's wife yonder, when she bought a letter of credit on the -Dresdner Bank, had not figured even on the remote possibility of its -refusing to hand her over all the money she might care to draw. The -moment had come, she was vociferating, to see what "American citizenship -amounts to, anyhow," and what she demanded was a special train to -warless frontiers, and then a ship to take her "home." These were just -a few of the plaints and claims which issued in a crescendo of -insistence and panic from these neurotic tourist folk, who, in tones -often more imperious than appealing, wanted to know what "Our -Government" intended to do with its war refugees and refugettes cruelly -trapped in Armageddonland. - -Americans who come to Europe proverbially feel a proprietary interest in -their Embassies, Legations and Consulates. The Berlin Ambassador for -years put in much valuable time assuaging the grief and disappointment -of brother patriots who felt a God-given right to gratify such trifling -ambitions as an audience with the Kaiser, an inspection of the German -army or minor favors like exploration of the German educational system -under the personal chaperonage of the Minister for Culture. Then, of -course, there was the ever-present "German-Americans," who, having -slipped away from their beloved Fatherland in youth without performing -military service, would risk a visit to native haunts in later life, -only to fall victim to the German military police system which has a -long memory and a still longer arm for such transgressors. On many such -an occasion, even when, like a Chicago man I know, the "German-American" -stole back under an assumed name, the paternal diplomatic intervention -of the United States has saved the "deserter" from a felon's cell in his -"Fatherland." - -By the morning of August 4, the American panic in Berlin began to assume -truly disastrous dimensions. The Embassy was literally jammed with -fretting men, and weepy women and children. Every room overflowed with -them. The cry was now for passports. It was coming from all parts of -the country. All foreigners were suspect, English-speaking ones in -particular, and the German police were demanding in martial tone that -_Ausländer_ should "legitimatize" themselves. - -The railways were available now only for troops. The Hamburg-American -and North German Lloyd had canceled all their west-bound sailings, and -our Consular officials in Hamburg and Bremen were telegraphing the -Berlin Embassy that they, too, were stormed by throngs of Americans in -various stages of anxiety, fear and financial embarrassment. From -Frankfort-on-the-Main came a similar tale of woe. All around that -delightful city are famous German watering places--Bad Nauheim, Homburg, -Wiesbaden, Langen-Schwalbach, Baden-Baden, Kissingen and the like--and -American "cure-guests," regardless of their rheumatism, heart troubles, -gout and other frailties for which German waters are a panacea, forgot -such insignificant woes in the now crowning anguish to own a passport -which would designate them as peaceable and peace-loving children of the -Stars and Stripes. - -The Embassy rapidly and patiently mastered the situation. Mrs. Gerard -converted herself into the adopted mother of every lachrymose American -woman and child squatted on her broad marble staircase. Mrs. Gherardi, -the wife of our Naval Attaché, and Mrs. Ruddock, the wife of the Third -Secretary, who were at the time the only feminine members of the Embassy -family, resourcefully seconded the Ambassadress' efforts to soothe the -emotions of the sobbing sisters and youngsters from Iowa and Maine, from -Pennsylvania and Texas, from Montana and Florida, and from nearly all -the other States of the Union, who refused to view qualmless the -prospect of remaining shut up for Heaven knew how long in war-mad -Germany, already effectually isolated from the rest of the world behind -an impenetrable ring of steel. As for the men of the Embassy, from the -Ambassador down to "Wilhelm," the old German doorkeeper who has -initiated two generations of American diplomats into the mysteries of -their profession in Berlin, no faithful servants of an ungrateful -Republic ever came so valiantly to the rescue of fellow taxpayers. The -Embassy apartments, including the Ambassador's own sanctuary, were -turned into offices which looked for all the world like a Census Bureau. -Every available space for a desk was usurped by somebody taking -applications for passports or filling up the passports themselves, to be -turned over to Judge Gerard in an unceasing stream for his signature and -seal. Uncle Sam surely never raked in so many two-dollar fees at one -killing in all the history of his Berlin office. Nor did American -citizens, I fancy, ever part with money which they considered half so -good an investment. - -The Embassy itself, hopelessly understaffed for such an emergency, was, -of course, quite unequal to the enormous strain suddenly imposed upon -it, so volunteer attachés and clerks were gladly pressed into service. -There, for instance, sat a Guggenheim copper magnate, who probably never -lifts a pen except to sign a million-dollar check, at work with a -mantel-piece as a desk, recording the vital statistics of a Vermont -grocery-man who wanted a passport. In another corner sat Henry White, -ex-Ambassador in Rome and Paris, scribbling away at breakneck pace, in -order that the age, complexion and height of that trembling Vassar -graduate might be quickly and accurately inscribed in an application for -a Yankee parchment. There, with the arm of a chair as his desk, was -Professor Jeremiah W. Jenks, great authority on political economy, -currency and trusts, patiently extorting the story of his life from the -coroner of the Minnesota county who had been caught in the German war -maelstrom in the midst of an investigation of municipal morgues. What a -vast practical experience of inquests he might have reaped had he -remained in Europe! And over there, looking out on the Wilhelms Platz, -with a window-sill as a writing-board, the Titian-haired belle of -Berlin's American colony, in daintiest of midsummer frocks and saucy -turbans, who had never in years done anything more strenuous than -organize a tea-party, was in harness as a volunteer in the impromptu -army of Uncle Sam's clerks, doing her bit for her country and -country-folk. It was all very typically and very delightfully American, -a composite of true Democracy in which one is for all, and all for one. -I like to doubt if there are any other people on earth who turn in and -help one another in a spirit of all-engulfing national comradeship so -readily, so unconventionally and so good-naturedly as Americans. That -drama of companionship in misery and adaptability to emergency -conditions, which held the boards at the American Embassy in Berlin -during the first week of the Great War, will live long in the memory of -those who witnessed it as one of the striking impressions of a -Brobdingnagian moment. - -Obviously things would have been different if the crisis had not found -two real Americans in command of the Embassy in the persons of Mr. and -Mrs. Gerard. When the typical New Yorker whom President Wilson sent to -Berlin less than a year previous was first presented to his compatriots -at a little function at which it was my honor to preside, the man whom -political detractors contemptuously referred to as "a Tammany Judge" -made a "keynote speech," which he meant to be interpreted as his -"policy" in Germany, as far as Americans were concerned. He said: "When -the time comes for me to retire from Berlin, if you will call me the -most American Ambassador who ever represented you in Germany, you can -call me after that anything you please." - -Two years--what years--have elapsed since "Jimmy" Gerard made public -avowal of his conception of what United States diplomatic -representatives abroad ought to be--Americans, first, last and all the -time. As these lines are written German-American official relations -seem on the verge of rupture and our embassy's remaining days in Berlin -appear to be calculable in hours. Whether it shall turn out that the -_Arabic_ insult was after all swallowed as the _Lusitania_ infamy was -stomached, or whether Judge Gerard is finally recalled from Berlin as a -protest extracted at length from the most patient, reluctant and -long-suffering Government on record, he will richly have realized his -ambition--to be "the most American Ambassador" ever accredited to the -German court. In my time in Berlin I knew four American ambassadors. -Each one was a credit to his nation. But "Jimmy" Gerard was "the most -American," and I count that, in a citizen of the United States called to -_represent_ his country abroad, the superlative quality. The seductive -atmosphere of a Court in which adulation was obsequiously practised, -especially toward Americans, never turned the head of Judge Gerard or -his wife. They had far more than the share of hobnobbing with Royalty -which falls to the lot of diplomatic newcomers in Berlin. Princes and -princesses came with unwonted freedom to Wilhelms Platz 7. They found -the former Miss Daly, of Anaconda, Montana, being a natural young -American woman, as much at ease in their gilded presence as she was the -day before when presiding over the tempestuous deliberations of the -American Woman's Club out on Prager Platz. - -To me the Gerards, apart from their personal charm, unaffected dignity -and joyous Americanism, always were psychologically interesting because -they typified so splendidly that greatest of our national -traits--adaptability. To be dropped into the vortex of European -political life, with its gaping pitfalls and brilliant opportunities for -mistakes, is not child's play even for the most experienced of men and -women. France, for example, regarded no name in its diplomatic register -less eminent than that of a Cambon fit to head its mission to Berlin. -England kept at the Hohenzollern court the most gifted ambassador on the -Foreign Office's active list--Sir Edward Goschen. Unthinking Americans, -by which I mean those who underestimate our inherent capacity to land on -our feet, may have had their misgivings when a mere Justice of the -Supreme Court of the State of New York and the daughter of a Montana -copper king were sent to represent America among professional diplomats -of the highest European rank. But "Jimmy" and "Molly" Gerard made good. -It is the American way, and because it is that, it is their way. As for -the Ambassador, he has demonstrated, to my way of thinking, that a -graduate course in the university of American politics is ideal training -for diplomacy. Intelligence, tact, resourcefulness and courage, the -rudiments of the diplomatic career, are qualities which surely nothing -can develop in a man more thoroughly than the hurly-burly, -rough-and-tumble, give-and-take of an American electioneering campaign. -It is amid its storms and tribulations that a man learns to be something -more than an inhabited dress-suit. It is there he acquires the art of -being human. It is there that he comes to appreciate the priceless -value of loyalty. United States Presidents do not err seriously when -they hunt for ambassadors among men who have been through the -preparatory school from which "Jimmy" Gerard holds a _magnum cum laude_. - -My personal observations of Judge Gerard's ambassadorial methods are -based for the most part on his career before the war. But he has not -departed from them during the war. Bismarck laid it down as a maxim -that an ambassador should not be "too popular" at the court to which he -was accredited. From all one can gather, "Jimmy" Gerard has not laid -himself open to that charge in Berlin since August, 1914. Nobody who -knows him ever suspected for a moment that he would. Toadying is not in -his lexicon, and aggressively pro-American ambassadors are condemned in -advance to be disliked in Germany. They do not fit into the Teutonic -diplomatic scheme. If they are inspired by such unconventional -aspirations as those to which Judge Gerard gave utterance in his -"keynote speech" to the American Luncheon Club of Berlin, it is morally -certain that their usefulness--to Germany--is limited. - -[Illustration: Mrs. Gerard.] - -The American Ambassador had been acting for Great Britain in the enemy's -country barely thirty-six hours, when Sir Edward Goschen, Great -Britain's retiring Ambassador in Berlin, in his official report on the -knightly treatment accorded him and his staff during their last hours on -German soil, wrote: - - -"I should also like to mention the great assistance rendered to us all -by my American colleague, Mr. Gerard, and his staff. Undeterred by the -hooting and hisses with which he was often greeted by the mob on -entering and leaving the Embassy, His Excellency came repeatedly to see -me, to ask how he could help us and to make arrangements for the safety -of stranded British subjects. He extricated many of these from -extremely difficult situations at some personal risk to himself and his -calmness and _savoir faire_ and his firmness in dealing with the -Imperial authorities gave full assurance that the protection of British -subjects and interests could not have been left in more efficient and -able hands." - - -Nobody who ever knew "Jimmy" Gerard--that is the affectionate way in -which old friends and even acquaintances of brief duration almost -invariably speak of him--would expect him to be anything in the world -except "undeterred" by the cowardly onslaughts of the Berlin barbarians. -An expert swimmer, clever amateur boxer, crack shot, volunteer soldier -and veteran of New York politics, "Jimmy" Gerard never knew the meaning -of the word fear, and the unfailing courage with which he has "stood up" -to the Kaiser's Government throughout the various crises of the war has -been in full keeping with his virile temperament. - -It is sometimes said that our diplomatic system, or such as it is, -reduces American ambassadors and ministers to the status of -messenger-boys, who have little to do but to carry back and forth -between their offices and the foreign ministries to which they are -accredited the communications and instructions which Washington sends -them. There could, of course, be no more obtuse misconception. Berlin, -the capital of _Macht-politik_, is particularly a capital in which -everything depends on the manner in which a foreign Government's views -are expressed or its wishes conveyed. It has not been my privilege to be -behind the innocuous von Jagow's screen when "Jimmy" Gerard strolled -across the Wilhelms Platz to the ramshackle old _Auswärtiges Amt_, to -tell the German Government what Washington thought of this, that or the -other of her recurring acts of lawlessness, but I vow that von Jagow has -got to know Gerard for just what he is--an American from the top of his -extraordinarily well-shaped head to the soles of his feet. The war has -brought us many blessings. Among them we may count high the fact that -at the capital of the enemy of all mankind we had, ready to speak up and -to stand up for us, in gladness or vicissitude, a real man. - -No story of our Berlin war Embassy would be complete without a reference -to the Ambassador's lieutenants, who, inspired by his own example of -unruffled good nature and limitless patience, capably played their own -trying parts. At Judge Gerard's right hand was Joseph Clark Grew, First -Secretary, Harvard '02, who, having shot wild beasts in the jungles of -Asia, would naturally not quail before Germans, no matter how stormy the -conditions. Grew is one of the exceptional young men in our diplomatic -service, because, he has weathered its snares unspoiled. A -distinguished secretarial career at such important posts as Cairo, -Mexico City, Vienna, Petrograd and Berlin, in the course of which he -frequently acted as Ambassador or Minister in charge, has left him, at -thirty-five, as natural, human and American as no doubt many Harvard men -are while still beneath the democratizing influence of the campus elms. -I mention the preservation of these qualities in Grew because they have -been known to disappear in many of our worthy young fellow countrymen, -jumped precipitately from college into representative positions abroad, -and who thenceforth refused to brush shoulders with anything beneath the -rank of royalty. - -In Roland B. Harvey and Albert Billings Ruddock, respectively Second and -Third Secretaries, Judge Gerard was also the fortunate possessor of a -couple of adjutants who, in the presence of emergency, showed that -hustle and _bonhomie_, besides being American talents, are diplomatic -traits of no mean order. To preserve calm during the passport stampede -of the first week of August, 1914, was to exhibit the _finesse_ of a -Disraeli. Harvey and Ruddock are types of the younger generation of -American diplomatists who go in for the career with a view to devoting -themselves to its serious side and from among whom, some day, we ought -to evolve a professional service worthy of the name. Neither of them -ever struck me as being afflicted by such emotions as filled the breast -of a certain well-known young man when promoted from a European -first-secretaryship to one of our important ministerships in South -America. "Well, old boy," I asked him, "what do you think about going -to ----?" "Oh," he rejoined, "I suppose it's all right, but it's a h-- -of a way from Paris!" - -I must not end this chapter, which I hope is recognizable as a poor -expression of gratitude to all concerned for many kindnesses rendered, -without a mention of the youngest, but by no means the least meritorious -member, of the Berlin war Embassy family--Lanier Winslow, the -Ambassador's ever-ebullient private secretary. War sobered Winslow so -rapidly that he committed matrimony before it was six months old. I can -hear him now, in the midst of the passport panic, still imitating Frank -Tinney or humming _Get Out and Get Under_, just as Nero might have done -if Rome had known what rag-time was. At an hour when it was most -needed, Lanier Winslow was a paragon of good humor, and altogether, by -common consent, a thing of beauty and a joy forever. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - AUGUST FOURTH - - -Germany's war Juggernaut by the morning of Monday, August 3, was in -full, but incredibly noiseless, motion. I always knew it was a -magnificently well greased machine, geared for the maximum of silence, -but I felt sure it could not swing into action without some -reverberating creaks. Yet Berlin externally had been far more -feverishly agitated on Spring Parade days at recurring ends of May than -it was now, with "enemies all around" and that "war on two fronts," -which most Germans used to talk about as something, _Gott sei Dank_, -they would never live to see. One's male friends of military age--it -was now the second day of mobilization--kept on melting away from hour -to hour, but amid a complete lack of fuss and bustle. It almost seemed -as if the army had orders to rush to the fighting-line in gum-shoes and -that everything on wheels had rubber tires. As the Fatherland for years -had armed in silence, so she was going to battle. We saw no -seventeen-inch guns rumbling to the front. Those were Germany's -best-concealed weapons. A military attaché of one of the chief -belligerents, who lived in Berlin for four years preceding the war, has -since confessed that he never even knew of the "Big Berthas'" existence! - -Germany girding for Armageddon was distinctly a disappointment. I -entirely agreed with a portly dowager from the Middle West, who, between -frettings about when she could get a train to the Dutch frontier, -continually expressed her chagrin at such "a poor show." She imagined, -like a good many of the rest of us, that mobilization in Germany would -at the very least see the Supreme War Lord bolting madly up and down -_Unter den Linden_, plunging silver spurs into a foaming white charger -and brandishing a glistening sword in martial gestures as Caruso does -when he plays Radames in the finale of the second act of Aida. Verdi's -Egyptian epic is the Kaiser's favorite opera, and he ought to have -remembered, we thought, how a conquering hero should demean himself at -such a blood-stirring hour. At least Berlin, we hoped, would rise to -the occasion, and thunder and rock with the pomp and circumstance of -war's alarums. - -There was amazingly little of anything of that sort. The Kaiser instead -automobiled around town in a prosaic six-cylinder Mercedes, as he long -was wont to do, just keeping some rather important professional -engagements with the Chief of the General Staff, the Imperial Chancellor -and the Secretary of the Navy. As he flitted by, the huge crowds lined -up on the curbstone stiffened into attitudes, clicked heels, doffed hats -and "_hoched_." The atmosphere was _stimmungsvoller_ than usual, for -German phlegm had vanished along with high prices on the Bourse, but the -paroxysm of electric excitement which I always fancied would usher in a -German war was unaccountably missing. When you mentioned that -phenomenon to German friends, their bosoms swelled with visible pride. -They were immeasurably flattered by your indirect compliment that the -Kaiser's war establishment was so perfect a mechanism that it could -clear for action almost imperceptibly. - -I had now deserted my home in suburban Wilmersdorf, which I nicknamed -the "District of Columbia," for in and all around it Berlin's American -colony was domiciled, and taken a room for the opening scenes of the war -drama in the Hotel Adlon. With its broad fronts on the Linden and -Pariser Platz, and the French, British and Russian Embassies within a -stone's throw to the right and left, the Adlon was an ideal vantage -point. If there were to be "demonstrations," I could feel sure, at so -strategic a point, of being in the thick of them. Events of the -succeeding thirty-six hours were to show that I did not reckon without -my host on that score. - -From window and balcony overlooking the Linden I could now see or hear -at intervals detachments of Berlin regiments, Uhlans or Infantry of the -Guard, or a battery of light artillery, swinging along to railway -stations to entrain for the front. Occasionally battalions of -provincial regiments, distinguishable because the men did not tower into -space like Berlin's guardsmen, crossed town en route from one train to -another. The men seemed happier than I had ever before seen German -soldiers. That was the only difference, or at least the principal one. -The prospect of soon becoming cannon-fodder was evidently far from -depressing. Most of them carried flowers entwined round the rifle -barrel or protruding from its mouth. Here and there a bouquet dangled -rakishly from a helmet. Now and then a flaxen-haired Prussian girl -would step into the street and press a posey into some trooper's grimy -hand. Yet, except for the fact that the soldiers were all in field -gray, (I wonder when the Kaiser's military tailors began making those -millions of gray uniforms!) with even their familiar spiked headpiece -masked in canvas of the same hue, the Kaiser's fighting men marching off -to battle might have been carrying out a workaday route-march. Then, -suddenly, a company or a whole battalion would break into song, and the -crowd, trailing alongside the bass-drum of the band, just as in peace -times, would take up the refrain, and presently half-a-mile of _Unter -den Linden_ was echoing with _Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_, and -I knew that the Fatherland was at war. - -At the railway stations of Berlin and countless other German towns and -cities at that hour heart-rending little tragedies were being enacted, -as fathers, mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts bade a long farewell -to the beloved in gray. Only rarely did some man in uniform himself -surrender to the emotions of the moment. These swarthy young Germans, -with fifty or sixty pounds of impedimenta strapped round them, were -endowed with Spartan stolidity now, and smilingly buoyed up the drooping -spirits of the kith and kin they were leaving behind. "_Es wird schon -gut, Mütterchen! Es wird schon gut!_" (It will be all right, mother -dear! It will be all right!) Thus they returned comfort for tears. -_"Nicht unterliegen! Besser nicht zurückkehren!_" (Don't be beaten! -Better not come back at all!) was the good-by greeting blown with the -final kisses as many a trainload of embryonic heroes faded slowly from -sight beneath the station's gaping archway. Germany was now indubitably -convinced that its war was war in a holy cause. The time had come for -the Fatherland to rise to the majesty of a great hour. "_Auf -wiedersehen!_" sang the country to the army. But if there was to be no -reunion, the army must go down fighting to the last gasp for _unsere -gerechte Sache_, manfully, tirelessly, ruthlessly, till victory was -enforced. Such were the inspiring thoughts amid which the boys in field -gray trooped off to die for Kaiser and Empire. - -The outstanding event of August 3 was the publication of the German -Government's famous apologia for the war, the so-called "White Paper" -officially described as "Memorandum and Documents in Relation to the -Outbreak of the War." Early in the afternoon a telephone message -arrived for me at the Adlon to the effect that if I would call at the -Press Bureau of the Foreign Office at five o'clock, _Legationsrat_ -Heilbron, one of Hammann's lieutenants whom I had known for many years, -would be glad to deliver me an advance copy for special transmission to -London and New York. I lay great stress on the fact that up to sun-down -of August 3, 1914, I continued to be _persona gratissima_ with the -Imperial German Government. It was true that one of the young Foreign -Office cubs told off to censor press cablegrams at the Main Telegraph -Office had, during the preceding three days, expressed annoyance with -what he considered my eagerness to "go into details," but _Legationsrat_ -Heilbron's invitation to fetch the "White Paper" was gratifying evidence -that my relations with the powers-that-be were still "correct," even if -not cordial. I was glad of that, because there was constantly in my -mind the desire to remain in Germany, whatever happened, with a -front-row seat for the big show. At the appointed hour I presented -myself in Herr Heilbron's room on the ground floor of the Wilhelmstrasse -front of the Foreign Office. He greeted me with old-time courtesy, -though I found his demeanor perceptibly depressed. He handed me a copy -of the _Denkschrift_, and, when I begged him for a second one, he -complied with a gracious _bitte sehr_. - -A London colleague had already intimated to me that the Imperial -Chancellor, desiring to place the German case promptly and fully before -the British and American publics, would "do his best" with the military -authorities who were now in supreme control of the postal telegraph and -cable lines to induce them to allow London and New York correspondents -to file exhaustive "stories" on the White Paper. As I was sure, -however, that Reuter's Agency for England and the Associated Press for -America would be handling the affair at great length, my treatment of it -was confined, as was usual under such circumstances, to telegraphing a -brief introductory summary. - -What struck me instantly as the hall-marks of the German publication -were its treatment of the war as an exclusively Russian-provoked -Russo-German affair and its brazenly _ex-parté_ character--how -_ex-parté_ I did not fully realize till I read England's White Paper a -week later. Sir Edward Grey laid his cards on the table, without -marginal notes or comment of any kind, and asked the world to pass -judgment. Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg's White Paper began with a -lengthy plea of justification and ended with quotation of such -communications between the Kaiser's Government and its ambassadors and -between the German Emperor and the Czar as would most plausibly support -the Fatherland's case for war. It was manifestly a biased and -incomplete record. It was in fact a doctored record, and suggested that -its authors had Bismarck's mutilation of the Ems telegram in mind as a -precedent, in emulation of which no German Government could possibly go -wrong. - -Although compiled to include events up to August 1, the German White -Paper was silent as the grave in regard to Belgium and the negotiations -with the Government of Great Britain. Issued on the night of August 3, -when hundreds of thousands of German troops were waiting at -Aix-la-Chapelle for the great assault on Liége--if, indeed, at that hour -they were not already across the Belgian frontier--this sacred brief -designed to establish the Fatherland's case at the bar of world opinion -had no single word to say on what was destined to be almost the supreme -issue of the war. It was the last word in Imperial German deception. -If the German public had known that Sir Edward Grey on July 30 had -already "warned Prince Lichnowsky that Germany must not count upon our -standing aside in all circumstances," I imagine its bitterness a few -nights later, when the fable of England's "treacherous intervention" was -sprung upon the deluded Fatherland, might have been less barbaric in its -intensity. - -Next to the omission of all reference to what Sir Edward Grey called -Germany's "infamous proposal" for the purchase of British neutrality--a -pledge not to despoil France of European territory if England would -stand with folded arms while Germany violated Belgium and ravished the -French Colonial Empire--the striking feature of the Berlin White Paper -was the admission of German-Austrian complicity in the humiliation of -Serbia. The Foreign Office, as I have previously explained, had -zealously affirmed Germany's entire detachment from Austria's programme -for avenging Serajevo. What did the White Paper now tell us? That - - -"Austria had to admit that it would not be consistent either with the -dignity or the self-preservation of the Monarchy to look on longer at -the operations on the other side of the border without taking action.... -_We were able to assure our ally most heartily of our agreement with her -view of the situation, and to assure her that any action she might -consider it necessary to take in order to put an end to the movement in -Servia directed against the existence of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy -would receive our approval_. We were fully aware, in this connection, -that warlike moves on the part of Austria-Hungary against Servia would -bring Russia into the question, and might draw us into a war in -accordance with our duties as an ally." - - -The historic and ineffaceable fact is that Austria--wabbly, invertebrate -Austria, which would even to-day, but for Germany, lay prostrate and -vanquished--never made a solitary move in the whole plot to coerce -Serbia without the full concurrence of the big brother at Berlin. It -would be an insult to the intelligence of German diplomacy, stupid as it -is, to imagine that the Kaiser's Government sat mute, unconsulted and -nonchalant, while Austria worked out a scheme certain, as the Germans -themselves admit in their White Paper, to plunge Europe into war. - -It was my privilege on arriving in the United States on August 22, to -furnish the _New York Times_ with the first copy of the German White -Paper to reach the American public. In preparing a prefatory note to -accompany the verbatim translation published in next day's paper, I -selected the paragraph above quoted as _primâ-facie_ evidence that the -German claim of non-collusion with Austria is subterfuge--to give it the -longer and less unparliamentary term. - -The German White Paper was prepared formally for the information of the -Reichstag, which was summoned to meet on Tuesday, August 4 of -imperishable memory, for the purpose of voting $325,000,000 of initial -war credits. Paris was not won in the expected six weeks, and the -Reichstag has voted $7,500,000,000 of war credits up to this writing -(September 1, 1915), with melancholy promise of still more to come. The -twenty-four hours preceding the war sitting had not been eventless. -Monsieur Sverbieff and the staff of the Russian Embassy were the victims -of gross insults from the mob in _Unter den Linden_, as they left their -headquarters in automobiles for the railway station. Mounted police were -present to "keep order," but their "vigilance" did not deter German men -and youths from spitting in the faces of the Czar's representatives, -belaboring them with walking-sticks and umbrellas, and offering rowdy -indignities to the women of the ambassadorial party. In front of the -French Embassy menacing crowds stood throughout the day and night, -waiting for a chance to exhibit German patriotism at Monsieur Cambon's -expense. When Señor Polê de Bernábe, the Spanish Ambassador, who was -calling to arrange to take over the representation of France during the -war, made his appearance, the mob mistook him for Cambon and was just -prevented in the nick of time from assaulting the Spaniard. How the -French Embassy finally got away from Germany, under circumstances which -would have shamed a Fiji Island government, was later related for the -benefit of posterity in the French _Yellow Book_. When I read it months -later, I remembered my first German teacher in Berlin, a noblewoman, -once telling me, when I asked her how to say "gentleman" in German: -"There is no such thing as a 'gentleman' in the German language." That -was paraphrased to me by another German on a later occasion, when, -discussing the ability of German science, so well demonstrated during -this war, to devise a substitute for almost anything, he remarked: "The -only thing we can't make is a gentleman, because we never had a proper -analysis of the necessary ingredients." The Germans, in their -communicative moments, always used to acknowledge that Bismarck was -right when he called them "a nation of house-servants." It is -impressively exemplified on their stage, which boasts the finest -character actors imaginable; but when a German player essays to portray -the gentleman, he is grotesque. He gropes helplessly in a strange and -unexplored realm. - -On the day before the war session of the Reichstag, the Kaiser, more -conscious than ever now of his partnership with Deity, ordained -Wednesday, August 5, as a day of universal prayer for the success of -German arms. Soon after its proclamation, William II, thunderously -acclaimed, appeared in _Unter den Linden_ intermittently, en route to -conference with high officers of state. He was clad, like every German -soldier one now saw, in field-gray, and ready, one heard, to leave for -the front at a moment's notice, to take up his post, assigned him by -Hohenzollern warrior traditions, on the battlefield in the midst of his -loyal legions. Mobilization was now in full swing, and more and more -troops were in evidence, crossing town to railway stations from which -they were to be transported east or west, as the Staff's emergencies -required. A week before, all these soldiers were in Prussian blue. -They were gray now, from head to foot, millions of them. Obviously the -clothing department of the army had not been taken by "surprise" by the -cruel war "forced" on pacific Germany. Three million uniforms can not -be turned out in a whole summer--even in Germany. I thought of this, as -gray streams, far into the evening, kept pouring through Berlin, and I -thought what a marvelously happy selection that peculiar shade of -drab-gray, of almost dust-like invisibility from afar, was for field -purposes. To shoot at lines no more colorful than that, it seemed to -me, would be like banging away at the horizon itself.... - -History, I suppose, will date Armageddon from August 1, when the German -army and navy were mobilized, or perhaps from August 2, when Germany -claims that Russia and France fired the first miscreant shots. But the -red-letter day of the World Massacre's opening week was beyond all -question Tuesday, August 4, which began with the war sitting of the -Reichstag and ended with England's declaration of war on Germany. It -was destined to be especially big with import for me--of vital import, -as events hanging over my unsuspecting head were speedily to reveal. - -At midday, two hours before the session of the Reichstag in its own -chamber, Parliament was "opened" by the Kaiser personally in the -celebrated White Hall of the Royal Castle. I had applied for admission -after the few available press tickets were already exhausted, but it was -not difficult for me to visualize the scene. I had been in the White -Hall on several memorable occasions in the past--during the visit of -King Edward VII in February, 1909, at a brilliant State banquet and at -the ball which followed; at the wedding of the Emperor's daughter, "the -sunshine of my House," Princess Victoria Luise, and Duke Ernest August -of Brunswick, in May, 1913; and a month later during the Silver Jubilee -celebration of the Kaiser's reign, when our own Mr. Carnegie showered -plaudits on the Prince of the world's peace. Tower, of _The World_ and -_Daily News_, was lucky enough to secure a ticket to the Castle -ceremonial, and he was bubbling over with excitement at having been -privileged to participate in so memorable a function. My old friend, -Günther Thomas, late of the _Newyorker-Staatszeitung_, now joyous in the -prospect of joining the German Press Bureau's war staff, came back from -the Castle almost pitying me for not having been there. "Wile, I tell -you," I can hear him saying now, "it was beautiful, simply beautiful! -You missed it! It was enough to make one cry!" Thomas lived in New -York seventeen years, but he returned to Germany a more devout Prussian -than ever, as a man ought to be whose father fell gloriously at -Königgrätz. - -The description furnished by my English and Prussian colleagues -evidently did not exaggerate the splendor and impressiveness of the -scene at the White Hall. The Kaiser, in field-general's gray, entered, -escorting the Empress. He was solemn, but not anxious-looking. Around -the marble-pillared chamber, where only fifteen months before I had seen -the Czar and George V of England tripping the minuet with German -princesses as the Kaiser's honored guests, were grouped the first men of -the Empire. In the places of distinction, closest to the canopied -throne, each according to his Court rank, stood the Imperial Chancellor, -General von Moltke, Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz and a score of other -eminent officers of the civil, naval and military governments. Among -the foreign ambassadors only the representatives of Russia and France -were missing from their old-time places. Mr. Gerard, modest and -retiring as always, amid the glitter of gold lace and brass buttons -flashing on all sides, cut a more than ever self-effacing figure in his -diplomatic uniform--the plain evening dress of an American gentleman. - -The Kaiser read his War Speech, which he held in his right hand, while -the left firmly gripped his sword-hilt. Beginning in a quiet tone, His -Majesty's voice appreciably rose in intensity and volume as he -approached the kernel of his message which told how "with a heavy heart -I have been compelled to mobilize my army against a neighbor with whom -it has fought side by side on so many fields of battle." The Imperial -Russian Government, William II went on to say, "yielding to the pressure -of an insatiable nationalism, has taken sides with a State which by -encouraging criminal attacks has brought on the evil of war." That -France, also, the Kaiser continued, "placed herself on the side of our -enemies could not surprise us. Too often have our efforts to arrive at -friendlier relations with the French Republic come in collision with old -hopes and ancient malice." And when the Kaiser had ended, with an -invitation to "the leaders of the different parties of the Reichstag" -(there were no Socialists present) "to come forward and lay their hands -in mine as a pledge," the White Hall reverberated with applause which -must have seemed almost indecorous in so august an apartment, but which, -no doubt, rang true. It was then, I suppose, that Thomas felt like -weeping, and so should I, perhaps, had I been there. The Kaiser, his -handshaking-bee over, strode from the scene amid an awesome silence, and -the statesmen, the generals and the admirals went their respective ways. -All was now in readiness for the real Reichstag session, in which words -of deathless significance were to fall from the Chancellor's lips. - -We were accustomed to sardine-box conditions in the always overcrowded -press gallery of the Reichstag on "great days," but to-day we were piled -on top of one another in closer formation even than a Prussian infantry -platoon in the charge. Familiar faces were missing. Comert, of _Le -Temps_, Caro, of _Le Matin_, and Bonnefon, of _Le Figaro_, were not -there. They had escaped, we were glad to hear, by one of the very last -trains across the French frontier. Löwenton (a brother of Madame -Nazimoff), Grossmann, Markoff and Melnikoff, our long-time Russian -colleagues, were absent, too. Had they gained Wirballen in time, we -wondered, or were they languishing in Spandau? - -Doctor Paul Goldmann, _doyén_ of our Berlin corps, was in his accustomed -seat, beaming consciously, as became, at such an hour, the -correspondent-in-chief of the great allied Vienna _Neue Freie Presse_. -The British and American contingents were on hand in force. Never had we -waited for a _Kanzlerrede_ in such electric expectancy. "Copy" in -plenty, such as none of us had ever telegraphed before, was about to be -made. Goldmann, a Foreign Office favorite, as well as the all-around -most popular foreign journalist in Berlin, may have had an advance hint -what was coming, as he frequently did, but to the vast majority of -us--British, American, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Swiss, Spanish and -Danish, sandwiched there in the _Pressloge_ so closely that we could -hear, but not move--I am certain that the momentous words and -extraordinary scenes about to ensue came as a staggering revelation. - -Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg, who is flattered when told that he looks -like Abraham Lincoln--the resemblance ends there--began speaking at -three-fifteen o'clock. Gaunt and fatigued, he tugged nervously at the -portfolio of documents on the desk in front of him during the brief -introductory remarks of the President of the House, the patriarchal, -white-bearded Doctor Kaempf. The Chancellor's manner gave no indication -that before he resumed his seat he would rise to heights of oratorical -fire of which no one ever thought that "incarnation of passionate -doctrinarianism" capable. What he said is known to all the world now; -how, in Bismarckian accents, he thundered that "we are in a state of -self-defense and necessity knows no law!" How he confessed that "our -troops, which have already occupied Luxemburg, may perhaps already have -set foot on Belgian territory." How he acknowledged, in a succeeding -phrase, to Germany's eternal guilt, that "that violates international -law." How he proclaimed the amazing doctrine that, confronted by such -emergencies as Germany now was, she had but one duty--"to hack her way -through, even though--I say it quite frankly--we are doing wrong!" Our -heads, I think, fairly swam as the terrible portent of these words sank -into our consciousness. "Our troops may perhaps already have set foot -on Belgian soil." That meant one thing, with absolute certainty. It -denoted war with England. Trifles have a habit at such moments of -lodging themselves firmly in one's mind; and I remember distinctly how, -when I heard Bethmann Hollweg fling that challenge forth, I leaned over -impulsively to my Swedish friend, Siosteen, of the _Goteborg Tidningen_, -and whispered: "That settles it. England's in it now, too." Siosteen -nods an excited assent. It is in the midst of one of the frequent -intervals in which the House, floor and galleries alike, is now venting -its impassioned approval of the Chancellor's words. I had heard Bülow -and Bebel and Bethmann Hollweg himself, times innumerable, set the -Reichstag rocking with fervid demonstrations of approval or hostility, -but never has it throbbed with such life as to-day. It is the -incarnation of the inflamed war spirit of the land. The more defiant -the Chancellor's diction, the more fervid the applause it evokes. -"_Sehr richtig! Sehr richtig!_" the House shrieks back at him in chorus -as he details, step by step, how Germany has been "forced" to draw her -terrible sword to beat back the "Russian mobilization menace," how she -has tried and failed to bargain with England and Belgium, how she has -kept the dogs of war chained to the last, and only released them now -when destruction, imminent and certain, is upon her. - -All eyes in the Press Gallery are riveted on the broad left arc of the -floor usurped by the one hundred and eleven Social Democratic deputies -of the House of three hundred and ninety-seven members. For the first -time in German history their cheers are mingling with those of other -parties in support of a Government policy. That, after the Belgian -revelation, is beyond all question the dominating feature of a scene -tremendous with meaning in countless respects. There is nothing -perfunctory about the "Reds'" enthusiasm; that is plain. It is real, -spontaneous, universal. No man of them keeps his seat. All are on -their feet, succumbing to the engulfing magnitude of the moment. That, -it instantly occurs to us, means much to Germany at such an hour. It -means that the hope which more than one of the Fatherland's prospective -foes in years gone by has fondly cherished, of Socialist revolt in the -hour of Germany's peril, was illusory hope. The Chancellor knows what -it means. "Our army is in the field!" he declares, trembling with -emotion. "Our fleet is ready for battle! The whole German nation -stands behind them!" As one man, the entire Reichstag now rises, -shouting its approval of these historic words in tones of frenzied -exaltation. For two full minutes pandemonium reigns unchecked. -Bethmann Hollweg is turning to the Social Democrats. His fist is -clenched and he brandishes it in their direction--not in anger this -time, but in triumph--and, as if he were proclaiming the proud sentiment -for all the world to hear, he exclaims, at the top of his voice, "Yea, -the whole nation!" Thus was Armageddon born. Germany, all present -knew, would be at war before another sun had gone down, not only with -Russia and France, but with England, and, of course, with Belgium, too. - -"Supposing the Belgians resist?" I asked Schmidt, of the _B. Z. am -Mittag_, a German colleague whom I once christened Berlin's "star" -reporter, as we wandered, thinking hard, back to _Unter den Linden_. - -"Resist?" he replied, half pitying the feeble-mindedness which prompted -such a question. "We shall simply spill them into the ocean." - - - - - CHAPTER X - - THE WAR REACHES ME - - -"We are not barbarians, my dear Wile!" exclaimed Günther Thomas, when we -met in the Adlon after the Reichstag sitting, in reply to my query about -the safety of correspondents of English newspapers, now that Germany was -about to annex Great Britain as an enemy in addition to Russia and -France. I had found Thomas during ten years of acquaintance the -best-informed German journalist I ever knew. His long residence in Park -Row had grafted a "news nose" on him, which, coupled with a profound -knowledge of the history and present-day undercurrents of his own -country, made him an ideal and valuable colleague. I treasure my -relations with him in grateful recollection. One required occasionally -to dilute both his news and views with a strong solution of skepticism, -for Thomas was both a Prussian patriot and representative of Mr. -Ridder's _New-Yorker Staatszeitung_. But nine times out of ten his -counsel and information were like Cĉsar's wife. His assurance to me on -the evening of August 4, 1914, that his countrymen "were not barbarians" -was the most misleading piece of news he ever supplied me. - -The imminence of hostilities with England revived irresistibly in my -mind the qualms which had filled the Germans for a week previous on this -very point. "What will the English do?" was the question they constantly -flung at any one they thought likely to be able to answer it -intelligently. It was the thing which gave themselves the most anxious -heart-searching. The "war on two fronts," the purely Continental affair -with the Dual Alliance, filled the average German with no concern. The -Kaiser's military machine had been constructed to deal with France and -Russia combined, and no German ever for a moment doubted its ability to -do so. Events of the past year, I think it may fairly be said, have -justified that confidence, for I suppose no expert anywhere in the world -doubts but that for the presence of British sea power on France and -Russia's side, the German eagle would in all probability now be -screaming in triumph over Paris and Petrograd. But with the British -"in," dozens of Germans confessed, as my own ears can bear testimony, -their case was "hopeless." Few of them were persuaded that Germany -could, in Bismarck's picturesque phrase, "deal with the British Navy in -Paris." While the prospect of having to fight France and Russia did not -disturb the Germans, the possibility of having to battle with Britain -simultaneously filled them with undisguised alarm. They would not admit -it now, but in the fading hours of July, 1914, and the opening days of -August, it was a nightmare which pressed down so heavily upon their -consciousness that they never spoke of it except in accents of dread. -The Hate cult had not yet toppled their reason. Lissauer's demoniacal -ballad was still unwritten. In those anguished moments they talked of -England, when not in terms of outright fear, as the "brother nation" of -kindred blood and ideals with whom war was unthinkable because it would -be nothing short of "civil war." Doctor Hecksher, a well-known National -Liberal member of the Reichstag and _Stimmungsmacher_ (henchman) of the -Foreign Office, busily assured English newspaper correspondents of the -"horror" with which the mere idea of conflict with England filled the -German soul. I thought it queer that one of my last dispatches to -London, before Anglo-German telegraphic communication snapped, -containing Doctor Hecksher's views and mentioning him by name, was -ruthlessly censored in Berlin and returned to me as untransmissible. -That meant one of two things--that Doctor Hecksher was wrong in -attributing to Germany overweening desires of peace with England, or -that it was unwise to let me indicate that Teuton knees were quaking at -the prospect of war with her. Certainly lachrymose expressions of hope -that England would not feel called upon to "intervene" in Germany's -"just quarrel" with her neighbors were common to the point of -universality in Berlin on the eve of the clash. They were born of -inherent conviction that German aspirations of imposing Hohenzollern -hegemony on the Continent must and would be wrecked by England's -adherence to her century-old policy of opposing so vital a disturbance -in the balance of European power. - -Uppermost in my mind just now was how to transmit at least the vital -passages of the Chancellor's "Necessity knows no law speech" to _The -Daily Mail_. A merely informative bulletin about it to the editor had -just been brought back from the Main Telegraph Office by my faithful -young German secretary, Arthur Schrape, with the message that "no more -dispatches to England are being accepted." That was about six o'clock -P.M., at least three hours before Berlin or the world generally had any -knowledge that England and Germany were actually at grips. -Communication with the United States, Schrape had been told, was still -open, so the most natural thing in the world was to attempt to get -Bethmann Hollweg's crucial statements to London by way of New York. -Then followed a decision on my part which was to prove my undoing--I -committed the diabolical and treasonable crime of calling up my friend -and colleague, Mackenzie, the able correspondent of the _London Times_ -(like my own paper, _The Daily Mail_, the property of Lord Northcliffe), -and discussing with him the feasibility of cabling the New York -representatives of our respective papers to relay to London the news -which we were unable to send directly from Berlin. We were telephoning -in German, of course, as every one for three days past had been required -to do, and we realized that practically every conversation, especially -between highly suspicious characters like long-accredited Berlin -newspaper correspondents, was being overheard by some spy with an ear -glued to a receiver. Knowing all this perfectly well, we talked with -entire freedom of our nefarious scheme for undermining the safety of the -German Empire. Finally it was agreed that Mackenzie should come to my -rooms in the Adlon and arrange with me there the text of a cablegram to -New York which should bottle up the German fleet, encircle the Crown -Prince's army and generally wreck the Kaiser's plans for subjugating -Europe, even before the ink on the General Staff's plans was dry. We -agreed that the surest way of striking this blow for England was to -cable to New York a message whose veiled language would disclose to even -the most stupid eye that it concealed a plot of heinous proportions. It -was decided that we should concoct in cable language a cablegram reading -like this: - - -"Chancellor just delivered importantest speech Reichstag. As -communication England unlonger possible suggest your cabling Newyorks -news." - - -Mackenzie, accompanied by his assistant, Jelf, now a volunteer-officer -in Kitchener's army, arrived at the Adlon; we canvassed the New York -suggestion in detail--amid such secrecy that Schrape, a very keen-eared -German of twenty-two and a patriot, who is also serving his Kaiser and -Empire in field-gray, was permitted to participate in our deliberations. -Then we came to the most treacherous decision of all, viz., not to carry -out our grandiose project for confounding the German War Party's plot. -But we had gone far enough. We were discovered. Our machinations, -though we knew it not, were seen through, our guns were spiked, and all -that remained was to put us, as soon as possible, where we could do no -further harm. Any number of Frenchmen and Russians were already in the -same place. - -Carelessly leaving behind me my typewriting-machine, fifty-pfennig map -of the North Sea, copies of my preceding week's cablegrams, scissors, -paste-pot, carbon-paper, the latest Berlin newspapers, and other -telltale emblems of my infamy, I went to the American Embassy to discuss -the latest and obviously greatest turn of the war kaleidoscope with -Judge Gerard. There were a thousand and one questions to level at him. -Was it true that Sir Edward Goschen had already asked him to take charge -of Great Britain's interests? What would panic-stricken American war -refugees do now, with British warships blockading the German coasts? -Would it any longer be safe in Berlin for our people to talk their own -language in public? Would the United States Government be making any -declaration of neutrality, or something of that sort, to the German -Government? Was the Embassy still in direct communication with -Washington? Could it facilitate the transmission of our news-cablegrams -to New York or Chicago? These were the things the journalistic brethren -_en masse_ were anxious to know--and I recall vividly that the -Ambassador and his staff, despite a week of worries unprecedented, were -still smiling and managing to reply to every question, however abstract -or unanswerable, with invincible equanimity. I have since heard that -there were fellow citizens who found Gerard, Grew, Harvey and Ruddock -"inattentive." I suppose they were the patriots who couldn't understand -why local checks on the First National Bank of Roaring Branch, -Pennsylvania, "weren't good" at the Embassy, and who were "peeved" -because the Ambassador couldn't tell them why Uncle Sam hadn't already -started a fleet of dreadnoughts and liners-_de-luxe_ to Hamburg and -Bremen to rescue his stranded tourist family. Or one of the -complainants, who was "going to write to Bryan" about our "inefficient -diplomatic service," may have been that plutocratic dame from Boston who -demanded that Gerard should at least be able to commandeer "a special -train" for the Americans, even if every military line in all Germany was -at that hour choked with troop-transports. And yet we Yankees rank in -effete Europe as a cool-headed and common-sense race! - -What dominated my thoughts, of course, was whether, after all, I was now -to be allowed to remain in Germany. My desire to do so was never -stronger--to sit on the edge of history in the making at such a moment. -Judge Gerard resolved my doubts. I should "cheer up" and hope for the -best. I tarried for a moment longer, to chat over the day's -overwhelming developments with Mrs. Gerard, with whom I had not had my -usual daily cup of tea and war conference. We wondered how long it would -be before a formal declaration of war between England and Germany would -be declared. I spoke of my pleasurable anticipation at being permitted -to live through the mighty days ahead of us in Berlin with herself and -the Ambassador. They would be experiences worthy of transmission to -grandchildren. We agreed we should be privileged mortals, in a way, to -be vouchsafed so tremendous an opportunity. I commented on Mrs. -Gerard's amazing lack of fatigue after four days and nights of trials -and tribulations with terror-stricken compatriots. She spoke of the -lively satisfaction it had given her to be of service of so homely and -homespun a character, and remarked that young Mrs. Ruddock had been "a -perfect brick" through it all, an _aide-de-camp_ whom a field-marshal -might have envied.... - -Eight o'clock. Dusk had just fallen as I quitted the Embassy. A trio -of servants clustered at the entrance was examining in the dim light a -_Tageblatt_ "Extra" which, they said, was just out. I fairly snatched -at it. This is what it said: - - +------------------------------------------------+ - | | - | ENGLAND BREAKS OFF DIPLOMATIC | - | RELATIONS WITH GERMANY | - | | - | The English Ambassador in Berlin, Sir | - | Edward Goschen, appeared this evening in | - | the German Foreign Office and demanded his | - | passports. That denotes, in all probability, | - | war with England! | - | | - +------------------------------------------------+ - -I ought not to have been surprised, yet I was shocked. So England now, -at last and really, was "in it." The realization was almost numbing. I -stood reading and reading the _Extrablatt_, over and over again. "Joe" -Grew came hurrying up in his automobile. He, too, had the _Tageblatt_ -in his hand. He was hastening to tell the Ambassador the news. It was -true, Grew said, beyond any doubt. Ye Gods! What next? The world's -coming to an end, one thought, was about all there was left. And that -seemed nearer at hand than any of us ever felt it before. - -[Illustration: Berlin Mob Attacking British Embassy on the night of Aug. -4, 1914. (Drawn for the Illustrated London News from a description by -the author.)] - -I started now for the English Embassy, across the Wilhelms Platz and -down the Wilhelmstrasse four or five blocks to the north. From afar I -heard the rumble of a mob, not a singing cheering mob such as had been -turning Berlin into bedlam for a week before, but a mob obviously bent -on more serious business. I reached the Behrenstrasse, two hundred feet -away from the English Embassy. Though quite dark, I could see plainly -what was happening. The Embassy was besieged by a shouting throng, -yelling so savagely that its words were not distinguishable. They were -not chanting _Rule, Britannia!_ I was sure of that. It was -imprecations, inarticulate but ferocious beyond description, which they -were muttering. I saw things hurtling toward the windows. From the -crash of glass which presently ensued, I knew they were hitting their -mark. The fusillade increased in violence. When there would be a -particularly loud crash, it would be followed by a fiendish roar of -glee. The street was crammed from curb to curb. Many women were among -the demonstrators. A mounted policeman or two could be seen making no -very vigorous effort to interfere with the riot. It was no place for an -Englishman, or anybody who, being smooth-shaven, was usually mistaken -for one in Berlin. I did not dream of trying to run the blockade. The -rear, or Wilhelmstrasse, entrance of the Adlon adjoins the Embassy. It -would be easy to gain access to the hotel that way. I tried the door. -It was locked. I rang. One of the light-blue uniformed page-boys came, -peered through the glass, recognized me and fled without letting me in. -I rang again. No one came. Wilhelmstrasse now was roaring with the -mob's rage. Ambassador Goschen's subsequent report on this classic -manifestation of _Kultur_ described how he and his staff, seated in the -front drawing-room of the Embassy, narrowly escaped being stoned to -death by missiles which now flew thick and fast through every paneless -window of the building. - -[Illustration: Extra Edition of _Berliner Tageblatt_ Announcing War With -England] - -I hailed a passing horse-cab and told the driver to make for the Adlon -by the circuitous route of the Voss-strasse, Königgrätzer-strasse and -Brandenburg Gate. Ten minutes later I reached the hotel. I stepped to -the desk and asked for Herr Adlon, Sr., or Louis Adlon, his son; said -the Wilhelmstrasse mob might soon decide to hold an overflow meeting and -attack the hotel premises, and that certain precautionary measures might -be useful. The lobby of the hotel, I noticed, was rapidly filling up -with American war refugees, of whom there was to be a meeting. I -recognized a dozen or more anxious compatriots whom I had seen encamped -at the Embassy during the preceding two or three days. The Ambassador -was expected, they said, and they were hoping and praying to hear from -him that the Government had at last effected adequate rescue -arrangements. The frock-coated menial at the hotel desk, only a few -hours previous servility itself, was unusually curt when I asked where -the Adlons were. I did not think of it at the time, but his rudeness -assumed its proper importance in the scheme of things as they later -developed. I stopped to chat with Ambassador Gerard, who had just -strolled in. Then I met another acquaintance, Count von Oppersdorff, -the urbane Silesian Roman Catholic political leader, a familiar and -welcome figure on our Berlin golf links. "So England has come in," -remarked the Count. "Yes," I rejoined, "you hardly expected her to keep -out, did you?" "Well," said Oppersdorff, with a meaningful look in his -mild blue eye, "there will be many surprises--many surprises." That was -a war prophecy which has come true. - -I dashed up to my room to write a dispatch to _The Times_ in New York -and _The Tribune_ in Chicago, which should tell briefly of the outbreak -of war between England and Germany, and of the extraordinary scenes in -front of His Britannic Majesty's embassy. A _Lokal-Anzeiger_ "extra" was -now available, with this "cooked" summary of the events which had -precipitated the climacteric decision: - - +----------------------------------------------------+ - | | - | ENGLAND HAS DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY! | - | | - | OFFICIAL REPORT. | - | | - | This afternoon, shortly after the speech of | - | the Imperial Chancellor, in which the offense | - | against international law involved in our | - | setting foot on Belgian territory was frankly | - | acknowledged and the will of the German Empire | - | to make good the consequences was affirmed, | - | the British Ambassador, Sir Edward Goschen, | - | appeared in the Reichstag to convey to | - | Foreign Secretary von Jagow a communication | - | from his Government. In this communication | - | the German Government was asked to make an | - | immediate reply to the question whether it could | - | give the assurance that no violation of Belgian | - | neutrality would take place. The Foreign | - | Secretary forthwith replied that this was not | - | possible, and again explained the reasons which | - | compel Germany to secure herself against an | - | attack by the French army across Belgian soil. | - | Shortly after seven o'clock the British | - | Ambassador appeared at the Foreign Office to | - | declare war and demand his passports. | - | | - | We are informed that the German Government | - | has placed military necessities before all | - | other considerations, notwithstanding that it | - | had, in consequence thereof, to reckon that | - | either ground or pretext for intervention would | - | be given to the English Government. | - | | - +----------------------------------------------------+ - - -It was this news--reiterating by the printed word what the Chancellor -had unblushingly announced in the Reichstag: that military necessities -had taken precedence of "all other considerations," including -honor--which aroused the ferocity of the mob and incited it, amid mad -maledictions on "perfidious Albion," to vent its fury by attempting to -wreck the English Embassy. This German "official report," moreover, -besides distorting the facts so as to place the onus for the outbreak of -hostilities exclusively upon England, deliberately misstated the object -of Sir Edward Goschen's visit to the Foreign Office. As we know from -his famous dispatch on the last phase, he did not "appear" there "to -declare war." England's declaration of war, as a matter of historical -record, was not made until eleven P.M., or midnight Berlin time. The -assault on the Embassy by _Kultur's_ knife-throwing, stone-hurling and -window-breaking cohorts was in full progress by nine o'clock. It began -almost immediately after Sir Edward Goschen's return from his celebrated -farewell interview with the Imperial Chancellor--the torrid quarter of -an hour in which von Bethmann Hollweg, incapable of concealing Germany's -rage over the wrecking of her war scheme, blackened the Teutonic -escutcheon for all time by branding the Belgian treaty of neutrality as -a "scrap of paper." Of all egregious words which have fallen from the -lips of German "diplomats," von Bethmann Hollweg's immortal -indiscretions of that day will live longest, to his own and his -country's ineffaceable shame. - -While at work on my dispatches in my hotel room--it was now about nine -o'clock--I could hear _Unter den Linden_ below my windows roaring with -mob fury against Britain. "_Krämer-volk!_" (Peddler nation!) -"_Rassen-Verrat!_" (Race treachery!) "_Nieder mit England!_" (Down with -England!) "_Tod den Engländer!_" (Death to the English!) were the shouts -which burst forth in mad chorus. I have never hunted beasts in the -jungle. Never have my ears been smitten with the snarl and growl of -wild animals at bay. I never heard the horizon ring with the tumult of -howling dervishes plunging fanatically to the attack. But the populace -of Berlin seemed to me at that moment to be giving a vivid composite -imitation of them all. Certainly no civilized community on earth ever -surrendered so completely to all-obsessing brute fury as the war mob -which thirsted for British blood in "Athens-on-the-Spree" on the night -of August 4, 1914. It gave vent to all the animal passions and breathed -the murder instinct said to be inherent in the average human when -unreasoning rage temporarily supplants sanity. If it had caught sight -of or could have laid hands on Sir Edward Goschen, or any one else -identifiable as an Engländer, it would undoubtedly have torn him limb -from limb. The Germans may not be the modern personification of the -Huns, but the savagery to which their Imperial capital ruthlessly -resigned itself on the threshold of war with England justifies the -belief that they have inherited some of the characteristics of Attila's -fiends. Next morning's Berlin papers explained in all seriousness, on -police authority, that the mob "infuriated" because persons in the -English Embassy had thrown "beggars' pennies" from the windows--a -ludicrous falsehood. - -Half an hour later I came down-stairs to motor to the Main Telegraph -Office with my American cables. No sooner had I stepped to the threshold -of the hotel than three policemen grabbed me--one pinioning my right -arm, another my left, and the third gripping me by the back of the neck. -All around the hotel entrance stood gesticulating Germans yelling, like -Comanche Indians, "_Englischer Spion! Nach Spandau mit ihm!_" (English -spy! To Spandau with him!) In far less time than it takes me to tell -it, my captors, who had now drawn their sabers to "protect" me, as they -explained, from the murderous intentions of the mob, tossed me into the -rear seat of an open taxicab waiting at the curb. They allowed -sufficient time to elapse for the mob, which now encircled the cab -shouting "_Englischer Hund!_" (English dog!) "_Schiesst den Spion!_" -(Shoot the spy!) and other cheery greetings, to cool its passions on my -hapless head and body with fisticuffs and canes, while a misdirected -upper-cut from a youth, aimed squarely at my jaw, did nothing but knock -my hat into the bottom of the car and send my eye-glasses splintered and -spinning to the same destination. The police, still covering me with -their sabers, shoved me to the floor of the car and gave orders to the -driver to make post-haste for the Mittel-strasse police station, half a -dozen blocks away. The power of speech having temporarily returned--I -wonder if my readers will regard it a humiliating confession if I -acknowledge that cold chills were now chasing up and down my spine?--I -ventured to ask the policemen to whom or to what I was indebted for this -"striking" token of their solicitude. - -"You know perfectly well why you're here," replied the giant who was -gripping me by the right arm as if I might be contemplating escape from -the lower regions of the taxi by falling through or flying away. "The -mob heard the Adlon was full of English spies, and they were waiting for -you to come out. They'd have killed you on the spot if we hadn't been -there to rescue you." That was, of course, simply an absurd lie, as -fast-crowding events of the succeeding night were to demonstrate. I was -arrested because I had been denounced, in all formality, as a spy. If -the German authorities are inclined to assert the contrary, I refer -them, without permission, to the document reproduced opposite this -page--the official and original denunciation obligingly slipped by -mistake into my handbag of personal belongings at the Police-Presidency -later in the night, when, on the demand of the American Ambassador, I -was precipitately released from custody. Doctor Otto Sprenger, of -Bremen, was one of the police spies stationed either in the Hotel Adlon, -or at a wire therewith connected, to overhear conversations, and who, in -the hour of his country's extremities, struck a herculean blow for -Kaiser and Empire by catching Mackenzie (Kingsley is as near as he could -get the name) and myself in our telephonic plot to frustrate Germany's -war plans. - -I was still remonstrating with the police about the absurdity of my -arrest when the taxi pulled up in front of Mittel-strasse station. -Evidently news of our impending arrival had preceded us, for another -gang of shouting patriots was assembled in front of the station and -proceeded to bestow upon me the same sort of a welcome as I received at -the hands of the mob in Unter den Linden. Still "protecting" me with -their drawn sabers, my guardians contrived to push and drag me into the -station-house and up one flight of stairs to headquarters before the -crowd had done anything more serious than crack me over the head and -shoulders half a dozen times. I was then led into the back room of the -station, where, as I soon saw, pickpockets and other criminals are taken -to be stripped and searched, and was ordered to sit down in the midst of -a group of twenty policemen, who eyed me with glances mingling contempt -and murderous intent. - -[Illustration: Facsimile of Original Denunciation of the Author as an -"English Spy"] - -I had partially recovered my equilibrium after my somewhat exciting -experiences of the previous ten minutes and found myself able to talk -dispassionately to a courteous young lieutenant of police who was in -charge of the station. I told him I was not only an American, but a -long-time resident of Berlin, with a home of my own in Wilmersdorf, and -that if he would communicate with his superior, Doctor Henninger, chief -of the political police, who had known me for years, he would soon be -able to convince himself that a grotesque mistake had been made in -arresting me as an "English spy." The lieutenant, who, I should think, -was the only man in all Berlin who had not yet entirely lost his reason, -asked me politely for my papers and other credentials. I handed him my -American passport, newly-issued at the Embassy a few days before, a -visiting-card bearing my Berlin home address, one or two copies of my -most recent news telegrams to London and New York, which I happened to -have with me, my correspondent's identification card stamped by the -Berlin police department, and finally a letter which I had been carrying -with me during the war crisis for precisely some such emergency--a -communication sent me from the Imperial yacht in the summer of 1913, -acknowledging in gracious terms a copy of _Men Around the Kaiser_, which -William II had deigned to accept at my hands. The police lieutenant -almost clicked heels and came to the salute when he saw that his -prisoner was the possessor of so priceless a document. He asked me to -"calm" myself and await developments. "_Es wird schon gut sein._" -Which in real language means that "everything will be all right." - -As their superior officer had not lopped off my head on sight, and even -condescended to hold courteous converse with the "spy," the group of -policemen in whose midst I found myself now warmed up to me perceptibly. - -"You are an American, eh?" ejaculated one of them. "I wonder if you -know my brother in Minnesota? His name is Paul Richter." - -I was genuinely sorry I had never met Herr Richter--probably he did not -live in the Red River Valley, which was the only part of Minnesota I -knew, I explained. I knew some Richters in my native county of La -Porte, Indiana, but they had never claimed the honor, to my knowledge, -of having a brother in the Kaiser's police. While _Schutzmann_ Richter -and I were doing our best to discover that the world is small, noise of -fresh commotion, such as had greeted my own arrival at the station, -ascended from the street. Apparently a fresh "bag" had come in. A -second later, of all people on earth, who should be pushed into the -room, with three policemen at his neck and arms, but my very disheveled -friend, Tower. He was hatless, his collar and tie were awry, every hair -of his Goethe-like blond head was on end, and he cut altogether the -figure of a very much perturbed young man. There were no mirrors about, -so I can not say with certainty how I myself looked, but I am sure I -could have easily been mistaken for Tower's twin at that moment. -Partners in misery and anxiety we certainly were. Tower, it appeared, -was denounced to the spy-hunters at the Adlon by a chauffeur he had -engaged to drive him a day or two before--the man who piloted the -machine which was hired out to Adlon guests at fancy rates per hour. -Presently the chauffeur himself bounded into the room, shouting like a -madman. "Now we've got him--the damned English cur!" he snarled, shaking -his fist, first in Tower's face, and then, recognizing me, in mine, with -an oath and a "You, too, pig-dog!" The chauffeur now ranted his reasons -for denouncing both Tower and me. "I'm an old African soldier!" he -yelled. "I know these contemptible _Engländer_. This Tower (he called -it Toever, which was the way Germans used phonetically to pronounce a -former American ambassador's name) is the notorious _Times_ -correspondent!" Tower impetuously denied this soft impeachment, and -pointed out that instead of being the Thunderer's representative, he was -the correspondent of the _Daily News_, "the only Germanophile English -newspaper." Tower himself was never Germanophile, but it was grasping -at a legitimate straw so to describe his London paper. I could not -conscientiously identify _The Daily Mail_ as _deutschfreundlich_, or, I -regretfully mused, it might be the means of saving my neck. - -Now there was more noise from the lower regions. Whom had they nabbed -this time. Astonished as I was to see Tower marched in, I fairly gasped -when the newest batch of prisoners was shoved into the room, for it was -headed by my young secretary, Schrape, and included Mrs. Hensel, a -gray-haired German-American lady and an old Berlin friend of my family, -and Miles Bouton, of the local staff of the Associated Press. Schrape -and Mrs. Hensel had been denounced at the Adlon as my accomplices in -espionage--Schrape for obvious reasons, and Mrs. Hensel because she had -called to see me at the hotel a few minutes after my arrest, -undoubtedly, of course, to bring me illicit information or receive her -"orders." She had come, as a matter of fact, as countless acquaintances -of mine had been doing throughout the week, to ask for advice or -assistance in the midst of the topsy-turvy conditions into which life in -Berlin had been so suddenly plunged. Schrape was remarkably cool. So -was Bouton, who insisted upon expressing himself with such freedom about -the indignities heaped upon him that I momentarily expected to witness -his decapitation. Mrs. Hensel, poor soul, was frightened speechless and -between her tears could only incoherently make me understand that she -had no sooner asked for my name at the Adlon desk than the clerks handed -her over to the police. Bouton seemed to owe his arrest to the fact -that he was in Tower's company in the Adlon lobby, attending the meeting -of American war refugees. Tower had been savagely cracked over the head -by an Adlon waiter armed with a tray while being hustled out of the -hotel by the police. Mrs. Bouton, tearfully protesting against her -husband's arrest, had herself been threatened with arrest or something -worse if she did not instantly "hold her mouth." Just what part the -Adlon staff of clerks, porters, waiters and page-boys played in our -arrest was not made clear to me until the next day; of which more in the -succeeding chapter. - -As soon as the "gang of spies," as the policemen in the room now -pleasantly called us, was complete, Tower, Schrape and Bouton were lined -up against the wall and ordered to raise their hands above their heads, -while their clothes were searched for concealed weapons or incriminating -espionage evidence. While my fellow prisoners (except Mrs. Hensel) were -undergoing examination, a typical young Berlin thug, evidently a thief, -was brought in, and took his place adjacent to my colleagues, also to be -searched. The room was now resounding with encouraging shouts from -overwrought policemen that "the English dogs ought to be hanged." -Others suggested that "Spandau," the spy-shooting gallery, was a more -appropriate place for us than the gallows. For some God-willed or other -mysterious reason I was not searched. That gave me only temporary -relief, for we were presently informed that we would be taken to the -Police-Presidency (central station) for the night and "dealt with -there." That meant searching of everybody, I felt morally sure, and it -was then that the tongue of me began cleaving to the roof of my mouth, -while my throat parched with terror. For in a leather card-case in my -inside pocket I carried a telegraph code, utterly innocuous in itself--a -make-shift affair got up during the preceding forty-eight hours and of -which I posted a duplicate to London, with a view to explaining to my -editor in cipher my movements and whereabouts if I had suddenly to leave -Berlin. It was a quite harmless string of phrases reading like this: - - -"My wife's condition has become critical, and physicians recommend -immediate departure if catastrophe is to be avoided." - - -All this was, of course, in German, and meant (as the code explained) -that I was proceeding to the Hotel Angleterre in Copenhagen. Another -phrase substituted "boy's" for "wife's" and meant that I was leaving for -the Hotel Amstel in Amsterdam, etc., etc. It dawned instantly upon me -that if the Berlin political police, at such a witching hour, discovered -on a suspected spy a telegraphic code of so "incriminating" a character, -he could hardly look forward to anything beyond the regulation thrill at -sunrise. I might have been able to explain in prosaic peace-times, I -soliloquized, that many newspaper correspondents use private codes in -communicating with their editors, but to convince a Berlin police -official at that moment that my code was of innocent import struck me as -the quintessence of physical impossibility. - -I was undergoing, I think, all the emotions of fear and trembling when -our quintette of prisoners was now marched down to the street and piled -into taxis for transportation to the _Polizei-Präsidium_ in -Alexander-Platz, two miles across town. An enormous throng filled the -Mittel-strasse, snarling with rage. The sight of us maddened them into -a fiendish scream. Tower and I were pushed into the first car, which -happened to be the Adlon machine he had hired and was doubtless still -paying for, and which was driven by his infuriated chauffeur. The -"covering" sabers of the police, one each of whom guarded Tower and -myself, respectively in the front and back seats, did not prevent the -mob from belaboring us once more with fists and sticks, to the -accompaniment of unprintable epithets and curses. My mind, however, was -occupied completely with how to get rid of that code nestling in my -inside pocket. Nothing short of entire insensibility could have -deflected my thoughts from that all-absorbing issue. I was thinking -hard and quickly. - -Tower's chauffeur, proud to be serving the Kaiser on so historic an -occasion, did not drive us, as he would naturally and ordinarily have -done, through the darkened side streets leading from Mittel-strasse to -Alexander-Platz, but decided to drag us in triumph like the victims -chained to Nero's chariots, down the brilliantly illuminated _Unter den -Linden_, which, though it was now nearly eleven o'clock, was packed with -war demonstrators. Crossing to the more crowded southern side, at a -point near the Hotel Bristol, the driver threw on his top-speed and -whirled us down the glittering boulevard at breakneck pace. As for -himself, with a policeman at his side, and two behind him pinioning -Tower and myself, he was frantic with super-patriotic joy. Now steering -with his left hand, he waved his right madly through space at the gaping -curb crowds, and yelled, so that they might know what it all meant: -"English spies! Now we've got 'em! Now we've got 'em! Hurrah! -Hurrah!" It was a great moment in that illustrious Kraftwagenführer's -career. Nothing in his greasy past had ever approached it in -tremendousness. He saw the Iron Cross dangling in certain outlines -before his ecstatic vision--the reward for valor in the hour of his -Fatherland's need. - -I was still brooding over that code, but even while being paraded past -the Berliners, I was actively at work on a scheme for its removal. -Necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention, and to this hour I do not -fully comprehend how I came to find the courage or ingenuity to do what -I was now successfully accomplishing. We had reached the Opera, were -approaching the Castle, and Alexander-Platz was less than five minutes -away. The need for quick work was growing more urgent from second to -second. My policeman held me firmly by the right arm. My left was -entirely free. With it I was able easily to reach the right-hand inside -pocket of my coat, wherein the card-case containing the code was lodged. -I contrived to finger my way into the case without attracting the -attention of my jailer, who, Allah be praised, was still too fascinated -by the plaudits of the crowds to be more than mildly interested in me. -I could "feel" the code now. It was of flimsy tissue paper and could be -easily torn into shreds. A sufficiently long interval had elapsed since -my last visit to the manicure to make my finger-nails highly effective -for the purpose, and by degrees which seemed infinitely slow I managed -to crumple and dessicate the "guilty" document and by "palming" and -working the bits into the spaces between my fingers the whole thing was -effectually destroyed. I withdrew my hand, stuck it into the outside -left-hand pocket of my coat to withdraw a handkerchief, blew my nose -and, while in that unforbidden act, let I don't know how many hundreds -of tissue paper particles fly back of me into the wind of Berlin's -bristling night air. I was saved. They could search me now to their -hearts' content. I found that, somehow or other, the power of speech -had suddenly returned, and a moment later I was saying cheerily to my -_Schutzmann_ friend, "Well, we're here now." - -The details of what happened in the big room of the Police-Presidency -into which we were now ushered--my friend Simons, of the _Amsterdam -Telegraaf_, and Nevinson, special correspondent of _The Daily News_, who -were found in Tower's room at the Adlon and arrested on that "evidence," -had arrived there before us--are brief and unessential. What had been -taking place during the preceding two hours is vastly more to the point. -Ambassador Gerard, who was at the Adlon when we were arrested, seems to -have cleared for action in his typically shirt-sleeves diplomatic -fashion. He dispatched First Secretary Grew to the Foreign Office to -demand our instantaneous release. Grew informed Under-Secretary -Zimmermann that if Germany continued to treat American citizens and -newspaper correspondents in accordance with the practises of the Middle -Ages (Conger was still languishing in jail at Gumbinnen) the Fatherland -was dangerously likely to lose the esteem of the only first-class Power -in the world which seemed still to be on speaking terms with her. Herr -Zimmermann, who understands plain English when it is spoken to him, was -apologetic in the extreme. He told Grew that immediate steps would be -taken to liberate me and my friends and that the Foreign Office -"regretted" that such indignities should have been heaped upon innocent -persons. Mr. Gerard evidently determined to take no chances, for the -first secretary was dispatched to the Police-Presidency with the embassy -automobile, and with instructions to demand our delivery in the flesh -and stay there till it was made. Meantime the Foreign Office had sent -urgent telephonic instructions to the police to let us out. We were -asked to fill up certain identification forms and exhibit some more -papers, and then, in accents of courteous explanation, were assured that -an "error" had unfortunately been made. We should "not hesitate, if -anybody molested us again," to call up Police Headquarters, and matters -would be speedily set right. It was not probable, we were assured, that -we would have any more trouble. If we desired, a police escort was at -our service, so that we might return to the hotel or to the Embassy in -certain safety. - -We had just been bowed out of the place of our brief detention when the -familiar outlines of "Joe" Grew loomed into view, down the corridor, and -with him "Fritz," the German "life-guard" of the Embassy. It is not -customary for American men to kiss each other, but I confess here to -having been momentarily inspired with a strong temptation to lavish some -form of osculatory gratitude upon Grew. Certainly I felt that there was -nothing quite so good on God's footstool just then as to be an American -citizen. When Grew insisted on packing all five of us--Tower, Mrs. -Hensel, Bouton, Schrape and myself--into the car and driving us back to -the Embassy (it was now the romantic hour of one A.M.) behind the -protecting folds of the Stars and Stripes flapping defiantly at the -windshield, I vowed a solemn, silent oath--to aspire in such days as -might still be left to me for an opportunity some day to reciprocate in -kind the service the Ambassador and Grew had that night rendered me, the -supreme service men can render a fellow man--to save his life. - -They were to be called upon, though I did not then know it, to rescue me -once again before either they or I were twenty-four hours older. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - THE LAST FAREWELL - - -Such sleep as I enjoyed in what remained of the night between August 4 -and 5 was secured, for the first time in a week, beneath my own roof. I -had finished with the "hospitality" of the Hotel Adlon for all time to -come. After a brief visit at the Embassy, to assure the Ambassador of -my everlasting gratitude for having thrown out the life-line, and seeing -Mrs. Hensel safely started for her home in Charlottenburg under trusted -escort, I betook myself to Wilmersdorf, where our faithful little German -governess, Anna Kranz, had been holding the fort all summer during the -absence of my family in the United States. I telephoned Fräulein from -the Embassy a summary of the night's events, fearing that police minions -might be paying me a domiciliary visit and cause the poor girl -unnecessary alarm. I told her Schrape was coming home with me for the -night and that as neither of us had had a bite since the preceding noon, -we could do full justice to anything, however frugal, which might at -that romantic hour still be discoverable in the larder. It was a -wide-eyed, then tearful and always sympathetic Thuringian damsel, who -listened to our story over bread and cheese at the romantic hour of -two-thirty A.M. I can hear her now interrupting with a characteristic -and condoling "_Aber, Herr Wile!_" - -Having dispatched Schrape to the Adlon early next day to pay my bill and -fetch the belongings I had had so abruptly to leave behind me there the -night before, I proceeded to town. At the Embassy was a host of friends -anxious for news of me. The most absurd rumors, it seemed, were in -circulation. There was a detailed version of my last moments in front -of a firing-squad at Spandau, and somebody "who had a friend at the -Police Presidency" had told somebody else that I was in shackles which -would probably not be removed till the war was over--if then. Still -another tale related circumstantially of how I had been "hurried" from -Berlin at the dead of night, under military guard, to the Dutch -frontier, across which, by this time, I was unceremoniously "expelled." - -When I was able to gain the ear of the Ambassador--the American -war-refugee panic was now at tempestuous zenith, with the Embassy like a -place besieged--I represented to him that I feared my hopes of remaining -in Germany, after what had happened, were slender in the extreme. -Scouts had brought in the intelligence, I informed him, that a miniature -mob of evident purpose was waiting in front of the Equitable Building, -where _The Daily Mail_ office was, now and then knowingly pointing to -our big gilt window-sign, in order that passers-by might understand why -traffic was being blocked in front of No. 59 Friedrichstrasse. If the -crowd waited long enough, it probably saw at work the sign men whom I -had ordered to take down the red rag. Discretion is ever the better -part of valor, and I felt no compelling desire to superintend the job in -person. - -The Ambassador thought I was unduly disturbed. He was convinced that my -arrest was purely an unfortunate blunder, due to a combination of -officious patriotism and excessive zeal, and meant nothing. I was -inclined to agree with him. Berlin and the Berliners had suddenly lost -their minds, and nothing which occurs when a community of men are in a -state of mental aberration ought in reason to be charged against them. -I had obviously fallen victim to the mass _dementia_ which robbed -Germans of their senses when their lingering fears of war with England -became terrifying actuality. I certainly did not overestimate the -importance of the episode. - -I now ran across von Wiegand of the _United Press_ (as he then was) and -Swing, of the _Chicago Daily News_. Being Americans, like myself, they -had just taken the precaution of applying to the Foreign Office for -credentials which would protect them from such delicate attentions as -the police had shown me. They suggested that I should see -_Legationsrat_ Heilbron and get an _Ausweiskarte_. Swing was in -jubilant mood. He had a scheme under promising way to accompany Major -Langhorne, our military attaché, to the front as a "secretary." My -heart pumped with envy. Von Wiegand had not yet worked out his -forthcoming campaign for interviewing the German Empire and the Vatican, -but all of us felt sure that his German noble origin, plus his nose for -news and excellent official connections, would land Karl Heinrich on his -feet, as far as reporting the war was concerned, if any one was going to -be favored at all. The Anglo-American newspaper fraternity was already -a rather decimated body. Conger, of the Associated Press, was still -jailed at Gumbinnen. Wilcox, of _The Daily Telegraph_, had been -fortunate enough, only a few days previous, to get to Russia. Ford, of -_The Morning Post_, had not waited for the crash and left for England on -one of the last peace-time trains. Tower, my night's partner in woe, -had slept in the porter's basement of the American Embassy and was now a -refugee in the British Embassy, where, I understood, all the other -purely English correspondents were being rounded up during the day, to -accompany Sir Edward Goschen and his staff out of Germany next morning -on the safe-conduct train provided by the German government. Mackenzie, -of _The Times_, with whom I had plotted by telephone, was still -unarrested, for some miraculous reason; I had not yet seen the original -"denunciation" of our espionage operations, from which I later knew that -he had only been identified as "Kingsley." He can blame that -circumstance, no doubt, for having been denied the privilege of my own -experiences. - -At five o'clock, the customary hour for newspaper men to visit the -Foreign Office, I went to call on _Legationsrat_ Heilbron. He had not -yet come in, so I sent my card to his colleague, _Legationsrat_ -Esternaux, with whom I had enjoyed professional acquaintance ever since -the hour of my arrival in Germany, thirteen years previous to the week. -I assured Esternaux that I cherished no particular animosity toward the -police authorities for my silly arrest, being convinced that a grotesque -mistake alone was responsible. Mildly apologetic, he acquiesced in this -view. - -"You were a victim," Esternaux then began, "of our just and universal -rage over the treacherous and treasonable action of England in stabbing -us in the back. Never, as long as they live, will Germans forgive the -perfidy of the British Government in betraying the common blood in favor -of uncivilized Pan-Slavism. It is the most criminal faithlessness in -the world's history--this taking advantage of our difficulties to vent -long pent-up spite against the merely dangerous German commercial -rival." Herr Esternaux did not mention Belgium, though the flow of his -righteous indignation was increasing from phrase to phrase. "Race -treason! That is what has fired the German soul to its depths! That is -what caused last night's unseemly demonstrations. Nobody condones mob -fury less than the German Government, but it is explained, if not -justified, by what has happened. Of one thing the world may be -sure--with whatever bitterness we make war on our Russian and French -foes, it will be nothing--it will be child's-play--compared to the -spirit of revengeful rancor and holy wrath in which we shall fight the -English race-traitors. That was the temper of the Berlin mob last night. -It is the temper in which we are going to war with Great Britain. It is -the temper in which we shall wage the struggle with her to the bitter -end. Make no mistake about that." I had listened, on the authoritative -premises of the Imperial German Government, to perhaps the first -official proclamation of the hate and frightfulness programme so far -uttered. _Gott strafe England_! How graphically succeeding events were -to bear it out! - -After _Legationsrat_ Esternaux had fired this high-explosive, he ushered -me out, and I knocked on _Legationsrat_ Heilbron's door, fifteen yards -farther down the passageway. Fur-mittens and ear-muffs are not _de -rigueur_ in northern Germany in midsummer, but I should have worn them -that afternoon of August 5, for the reception awaiting me at Heilbron's -hands was of arctic frigidity. It was a vastly changed Heilbron from -the obliging functionary who had pressed upon me, forty-eight hours -previous, copies of the German White Paper, in order that I might spread -the official truth about "how the Fatherland had worked to prevent the -war" broadcast in England and the United States. It was also a -strangely less courteous _Legationsrat_ than the one (Esternaux) whose -presence I had just quitted. - -"_Herr Legationsrat_," I began, "I have come to ask you for an -_Ausweiskarte_. You know, I suppose, of my little experience last -night. I am quite willing to take my chances with the mob, but I ought -to have something to protect me from the excesses of the police." - -"Mobs are mobs," he rejoined. "I can do nothing for you." - -"That is strange," I interposed. "Surely you know that the American -Ambassador has arranged for my remaining in Germany?" - -"I know nothing about that whatever," said Heilbron. - -"Well, _Legationsrat_ Esternaux does," I retorted, "because he told me -so not five minutes ago, and he said you would issue the necessary -credentials." - -Heilbron, who like all German bureaucrats has the backbone of a crushed -worm in the presence of superior authority, or the mere suggestion of -it, now reached for his telephone-receiver and asked to be connected -with somebody in the Foreign Office. He repeated the object of my call -to whomever was at the other end of the line, nodded in assent to -something apparently said to him, then turned to me: - -"It is just as I thought. The Foreign Office can do nothing for you. -If you want credentials, you must apply to the police." - -"But, _Herr Legationsrat_," I persisted, "there can be no objection to -your giving me something which will insure me ordinary safety at such a -time as this. After all, I'm an American." - -With a shrug of the shoulders and outflung arms, a German gesture -expressing indifference or helplessness, or both, Heilbron observed, -sardonically: "For us you are a _Daily Mail_ man--nothing else. You are -known everywhere as such. Certainly if you remain here, your position -will undoubtedly be a precarious one." - -It was plain that the ethics which impelled Von Bethmann Hollweg to tear -up the Belgian "scrap of paper"--brazen disregard of pledges--were now -being pursued in my very insignificant case. The German Foreign -Secretary had given a formal undertaking, as I understood it, as to the -inviolability of my personal and professional status as an American -newspaper man. Not five minutes before, I had been assured by an -official of the German Foreign Office in the Foreign Office that the -latter was fully aware of the arrangements which Mr. Gerard had effected -in my favor. And now another official calmly denied its existence, and, -moreover, declared in substance that a United States passport calling -upon the friendly German Government "to permit Frederic William Wile -safely and freely to pass, and, in case of need, to give him all lawful -aid and protection," was not worth the parchment on which it was -engraved. International law was being refashioned in Berlin in a hurry. - -Once again I was compelled to flee to the American Ambassador for -protection--reluctantly enough, for I had already usurped far more of -his time than one citizen is entitled to. I told him that the German -Foreign Office was trying to convert me into a man without a country; -not only that, but that its cheerful intimation as to my "position" -being "undoubtedly precarious" rang clearly ominous in my ears. The -Ambassador shared that view. He was of the opinion, when he saw me -earlier in the day, that my alarm was unwarranted. From what other -American newspaper men had meantime reported, my fears seemed to be -justified. He agreed that it was best that I should go--but how? The -town was already choked with Americans waiting to "go." If it were -impossible to move any of them across the frontier, what possible chance -was there of exporting me? There was, of course, just one chance that I -could think of--to leave next day with the British Embassy. The -Ambassador suggested that I should ask Sir Edward Goschen if he would -take me, along with the purely British correspondents, who, I learned, -were going in his train. - -So now, the United States having obviously exhausted its powers on my -behalf, I threw myself on the mercies of His Britannic Majesty. I found -Sir Edward Goschen unhesitatingly responsive to my request, on the -important condition that the German authorities would permit a -non-Englishman to accompany a safe-conduct party of British subjects of -highly official character! Once again the gates leading out of Germany -seemed barred to me, for my status at the German Foreign Office, as the -afternoon had established, was not exactly that of a _persona grata_ who -had but to ask a favor to have it granted. But, by an act of -Providence, as it then and always since has seemed to me, Ambassador -Gerard strolled into the lobby of the British Embassy while I was in the -midst of conversation with Sir Edward Goschen. The British Ambassador -repeated the conditions on which he would gladly rescue me--the assent -of the German Government--whereupon Mr. Gerard quietly remarked that he -would "look after that." He had little notion, I suppose, of the -herculean effort which would be necessary to give effect to his words. - -It was now past six o'clock. The British Embassy train was timed to -leave Berlin at seven next morning, Thursday, August 6. If anything was -going to be done for me, all concerned realized that it would have to be -done soon. "Go home, pack up all you can jam into two suit-cases, and -turn up at the American Embassy at nine o'clock," said Gerard. - -No home was ever deserted, I am sure, more reluctantly or so -precipitately as my little _ménage_ in Wilmersdorf. It seemed a -woefully inglorious ending to thirteen very happy and fruitful years in -Berlin. I thanked Heaven that my wife and little boy were not there to -be evicted with me. A woman's attachment to the things which have -spelled home--the books, the pictures, the thousand and one household -trinkets, enshrined with priceless value to those who have accumulated -them--is far stronger than a man's. The wrench of separation would have -been correspondingly harder to bear. In the midst of such reveries, -sandwiched between selecting the most essential contents for the two -suit-cases to which I was limited, I had a caller. - -"_Herr Direktor_ Kretschmar, of the Hotel Adlon, has come to see you," -announced _Fräulein_. - -Kretschmar is probably known to more American travelers to Europe than -any other hotel man on the Continent. The Adlon had been Yankee -headquarters in Berlin ever since its opening in the autumn of 1907. -Old man Adlon, its genial founder and proprietor, he of the arc-light -face at midnight, after a liberal evening's libations o'er the flowing -bowl, used to be fond of assuring people that "_mein lieber Freund -Wile_" had "made" the Adlon. If telling people that the Adlon was the -best hotel in Berlin, and reporting in my American dispatches, as -necessity required, that Governor Herrick, Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Schwab, -Doctor David Jayne Hill, Vice-President Fairbanks, Theodore P. Shonts, -John Hays Hammond, Otto H. Kahn or some other famous fellow citizen was -lodged in the marble and bronze caravansary at the head of _Unter den -Linden_--if this "made" the Adlon--I plead guilty to Herr Adlon's -charge. I shall never do it again. I divined at once the object of the -curly-haired Kretschmar's visit. Having graduated, I believe, like many -eminent German hotel keepers, from the humble ranks of hall-porters and -head waiters, he was a past master in obsequious servility. Many a time -I had seen him bow and scrape like a grinning flunky as he welcomed the -arriving or sped the parting guest at the Adlon, but never was he so -cringing a Kretschmar as he stood before me now. He got down to -business without delay. - -There had been a "terrible mistake" at the hotel the night before. He -was there to offer the "deepest regret" of both the elder and junior -_Herren Adlon_ that their "best friend" should have been the victim of -"such an outrage" on their premises. They had dismissed no less than -ten members of the hotel staff for complicity in my arrest. The Adlon -hoped, from the bottom of its unoffending heart, that I would "forgive -and forget." Kretschmar, at this point in his _peccavi_, almost broke -down. He was in tears, and, if I had let him, he would probably have -gone down on his knees. If I had known what I was told next day as to -his own connection with my experience at the Adlon, he would not only -have gone down on his knees, but down the stairs of my flat-building as -well. Whether it was he who incited the page-boys, desk-clerks, -elevator-men, chambermaids and waiters to regard me as an "English spy" -I can not say, but, in light of the experience which a colleague, -Alexander Muirhead, a London newspaper-photographer, had in the Adlon -shortly after my arrest, there is at least ground to fear that -Kretschmar may have been something more than an innocent bystander. - -"When I asked for you at the desk," Muirhead told me, "a supercilious -clerk, eying me fiercely, referred me to the manager, whereupon I was -escorted into Kretschmar's room. 'I've come to see my friend Wile,' I -explained. 'Your friend Wile's a spy!' snarled Kretschmar, who seemed -beside himself with fury. 'And he's now where he ought to be! As for -you, _mein Herr_, stand there against the wall, hold up your arms, and -be searched for weapons. For all we know, you're a spy, too!' The mere -thought of your name appeared to fill Kretschmar with incontrollable -rage. Having satisfied himself that I had nothing more explosive about -me than some undeveloped films, he allowed me to go my way amid -incoherent mutterings and imprecations about that '---- of a ---- spy, -Wile.' I was, of course, completely mystified by this extraordinary -episode, as I was at that time entirely ignorant of your fate." - -Muirhead is a plain-spoken Scotchman, as well as one of Europe's bravest -and most famous "camera men," and although the lachrymose Kretschmar -indignantly repudiates the occurrence, I hope he will not mind if I -prefer to believe Muirhead. The manager of the Adlon still keeps my -memory green. Periodically during the war, whenever some German paper -has outdone itself in dignifying me with vile abuse, Kretschmar has -faithfully marked it in blue pencil and sent it to me by two -routes--Switzerland and Holland--to make sure that it reached me. As I -have not taken the trouble to acknowledge these little tokens of his -abiding interest, I hope he may learn from these pages that they have -been duly received and fill not the least conspicuous niche in my -chamber of German war horrors. - -A weepy good-by scene with _Fräulein_, a parting, lingering look around -my beloved _Arbeitszimmer_--so soon to be ransacked by the German -police--an undying vow from the little woman to guard our Lares and -Penates as if they were her own last earthly possessions, and all was at -an end, so far as my habitat in Berlin was concerned. It has not been -my privilege to say farewell to fireside and dear ones and then leave -for the front in field-gray or khaki, but no soldier-man anywhere in -this war has torn himself away from home ties more sorrowfully than I -turned my back in the gathering dusk of August 5, 1914, on dear old -Helmstedter-strasse. Instinctively I felt that I should never see it -again, and my heart was heavy. - - -"What's Baron von Stumm got against you?" asked Second Secretary Harvey, -smilingly, at the American Embassy, when I arrived, bag and baggage, at -nine o'clock. "He says you're not an American." Stumm was the chief of -the Anglo-American section of the German Foreign Office. He knew -perfectly well that I am an American. He had entertained me at his own -table in May, 1910, when he gave a luncheon-party in honor of the -American newspaper correspondents stationed in Berlin and those -traveling with Mr. Roosevelt on the occasion of the Colonel's visit to -the Kaiser. Stumm had "nothing against me" in June, I explained to -Harvey, because of his own sweet volition he distinguished me with a -call at my hotel during Kiel Regatta. I could not imagine what had -suddenly come over the scion of the humble Westphalian blacksmith's -house, which was one of the first of the _nouveau riche_ German -industrial tribes to be ennobled. I could only think that, like the -Berlin police, _Legationsrat_ Heilbron, _Herr Direktor_ Kretschmar and -nearly all other Germans, Stumm had temporarily gone mad. If I was "not -an American," it had taken the Imperial German Foreign Office thirteen -years to make the discovery. Some day I am going to send Stumm a -Christmas card. It will be embellished with a gilded birth-certificate -attested by the clerk of the County of La Porte, Indiana. - -No one supplied me with the details of the final negotiations which were -necessary to induce the German Government graciously to consent to -permit me to leave Germany alive. I have since learned that my pass was -not secured without some extremely forcible remonstrances and -representations. Stumm had denounced me as a "scoundrel" and in other -knightly terms. Why the German Foreign Office so ardently desired to -prevent my departure, after having earlier in the same day declined to -promise me immunity from physical harm, is a mystery which I trust it -may some day elucidate. To fathom it is beyond my own feeble powers of -divination, and in this narrative of farewell tribulations in the -Fatherland, I have confined myself strictly to facts. I have resolutely -not yielded to the temptation to surmise. But as the official Genesis -of Armageddon is not likely to honor me with mention, I have presumed to -set forth my own diminutive part in it with perhaps a tiring superfluity -of detail. I have the more eagerly ventured to do so because grotesque -versions of the "terms" on which I, an American citizen, if you please, -"secured permission to leave Germany," have been, and still are, for all -I know, in circulation in Berlin. They are believed--and that is the one -saddening thought they inspire in me--by people who were once my -friends, among them Americans who place bread-and-butter business -necessities and social expediency in Germany above the elementary -dictates of gratitude and personal loyalty, which are traits one -encounters even in a _Dachshund_. It is these insufferable lickers of -German bootheels who "have heard" that I "gave my word of honor" to seal -my lips forever "about Germany," to "go back to the United States at -once" (perhaps as press-agent to Dernburg, who was also leaving -Germany), to "renounce all connection with English journalism," and -other pledges of equally imbecilic character. The only "broken pledge" -which the rumor-mongers did not foist upon me was an outright agreement -to join Germany's army of kept journalists. I should have been better -off, financially no doubt, if I had enlisted in that immaculate service, -which is one of the best paid in the world. - - -My permit to leave Germany, Harvey said, would be issued during the -night and be handed me next morning at the British Embassy. Meantime, -evidently to make assurance doubly sure, Ambassador Gerard gave me in -his own handwriting an attest that I was leaving the country with Sir -Edward Goschen. He affixed to it the great seal of the Embassy, handed -me the note with a merry "Good luck," I wrung his hand in a last grip of -gratitude and good-by, and we parted company. - -[Illustration: Ambassador Gerard's Note] - -Meantime I had opened negotiations with the Embassy porter to pass the -night on a cot in his lodge, where Tower had bunked after our arrest, -and arranged with him to call me at four-thirty, so that I could be at -the British Embassy well before six o'clock. While I was chatting in -the hallway, Mrs. Gerard came along. "Where are you going to sleep -to-night?" she inquired, solicitously. I told her. She would not hear -of my lodging plans in the porter's basement. There were half-a-dozen -bedrooms in the Embassy, and I must use one of them. Then she hustled -away, in the most motherly fashion, to prepare for me what turned out to -be a _suite-de-luxe_. My last night in Germany was slept on "American -soil." It was not the most restful night I have spent in my life, but -it lingers as the sweetest memory I cherish among a myriad of -recollections which crowded thick one upon another in that great wild -week in Berlin. "And do you like your breakfast eggs boiled three or -four minutes?" was the cheery "Good night" and _Auf Wiedersehen_ I had -from "Molly" Gerard. - -At least one German, in addition to my secretary and governess, who were -models of devotion to the last, took the trouble to show me a parting -mark of esteem. He was a colleague, Paul R. Krause, of the -_Lokal-Anzeiger_ staff, a son-in-law of Field Marshal von der Goltz, and -one of the best of fellows. Krause lived abroad so long--his life has -been spent mostly in Turkey, South Africa and South America--that he -will perhaps not mind my saying that he always struck me as effectually -de-Germanized. At any rate, having heard of my plight, he came to the -Embassy late at night to offer me not only fraternal sympathy, but -physical assistance in the form of readiness to become my "body-guard," -if I really considered myself in personal danger! He could hardly be -made to believe that Heilbron had been "such an ass," when I told of my -parting interview in the Foreign Office. Krause and I exchanged _Auf -Wiedersehen_ in the "American bar" of the Hotel Kaiserhof, round the -corner from the Embassy, where I noticed Doctor Dernburg, August Stein, -of the _Frankfurter Zeitung_, and Doctor Fuchs, of the Deutsche Bank, -gathered dolefully round a beer-table, and amazed, no doubt, to find -Krause in such doubtful company. - -I did not seek my downy couch in the Embassy until I had had a farewell -promenade and visit with two very dear newspaper pals, Swing, of the -_Chicago Daily News_, and Feibelman, of the _New York Tribune_ and -_London Express_. Feibelman was still in the throes of the anxiety from -which I was about to be relieved, as the Foreign Office had also refused -him credentials owing to his connection with an English journal. He -sincerely envied my good fortune in being able to escape with the -British Ambassador. I was glad to hear a week later that he too had -eventually contrived, with the American Embassy's assistance, to reach -Holland, where he has done excellent work for his paper during the war. -Swing, Feibelman and I, arm-locked, walked the silent streets around and -about the Embassy until long past midnight, speculating as to what the -red-clotted future had in store for each of us, embittered at Fate for -so ruthlessly disrupting friendships of affectionate intimacy, and -wondering, when all was over, if it ever would be, whether Berlin or -Kamchatka would be the scene of our next reunion.... - -Something told me that even a twelfth-hour attempt might be made to -hamper my get-away, so, as a "positively last farewell" favor I asked -"Joe" Grew, my rescuer from the police, to escort me to the train. -Though it meant his tumbling out of bed at the unromantic hour of five, -his breezy "Sure, I will" set my mind completely at rest. He arrived at -the appointed minute. The sight of the Stars and Stripes flapping at -the front of his car was a reassuring little picture. They had meant -much to me during the preceding forty-eight hours. At the British -Embassy, which looked more like a baggage-room or express-office struck -by lightning, with the floors littered indiscriminately with -hastily-packed boxes of documents and records, trunks, suit-cases, -golf-bags and batches of clothing hastily slung or strapped into or -around traveling-rugs--and all the other indescribable impedimenta of a -suddenly-retreating army or an evicted family--I found my German pass -awaiting me. It had been delivered to Godfrey Thomas, one of Sir Edward -Goschen's able young attachés, all of whom, like the Ambassador himself, -had given so characteristic an exhibition of British imperturbability -during the final hours of crisis. The pass described me as "the English -newspaper correspondent, Wile." It is reproduced opposite this page. I -treasure it with the same pride which probably inspires a reprieved man -to cherish the document which cheats the hangman. - -[Illustration: Facsimile of the Pass] - -There was no guard of honor to bid Sir Edward Goschen and his staff -Godspeed from the Wilhelmstrasse. No single German was so poor as to do -them reverence except a couple of sleepy policemen and half-a-dozen -blear-eyed, early-rising Berliners on their way to work. None of them -had yet learned to say _Gott strafe England_, so the lonely cavalcade of -luggage-laden taxis, which were hauling Great Britain's official -representatives on the first stage of their journey out of the enemy's -capital, proceeded on its way without molestation or demonstration. - -The very day the Kaiser's ambassador to England, Prince Lichnowsky, was -accorded a departure from London amid honors customarily reserved for a -ruling sovereign. Great Britain's ambassador to Germany was leaving -like a thief in the night, the Imperial Government having requested him, -when shaking the dust of Berlin from his miscreant feet, to slink to the -railway station as inconspicuously as possible and long before the -righteous metropolis waked. Otherwise, it was solicitously suggested, -_Kultur_, giving vent to the holy venom which now filled the Teutonic -soul, might feel constrained to stone the Ambassador afresh. Thus, I, -too, chaperoned by Grew, sneaked out of Berlin. - -My old German teacher was right. She said there was no word for -"gentleman" in the Kaiser's language. The fashion in which his people -went to war with England proved it. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - SAFE CONDUCT - - -Lehrter Bahnhof, the gateway through which so many American tourists -have passed out of Berlin en route to Hamburg or Bremen steamers, was -not _en fête_ in honor of the departing _Engländer_. My memory traveled -back irresistibly to the last time the British Embassy in force was -assembled there--to greet King George and Queen Mary when they arrived -to visit the German Court in May, 1913. The rafters rang on that -occasion with the blare of a Prussian Guards band thundering _God Save -the King_, cousins George and William embraced fondly and kissed, and -the station was swathed in the entwined colors of Germany and England. -It was a different and forbidding aspect which the old brick and steel -barn of a train-shed presented this muggy August morning. At every -entrance sentries in gray and policemen with Brownings at the belt stood -guard, for railways and stations were now as integral a part of the -war-machine as fortresses and guns. Inside, infantrymen in gray from -head to foot--all Germany had now grown gray--carrying rifles with fixed -bayonets patrolled the platforms, searching each Englishman, as he came -along, with glances mingling watchfulness and contempt. - -Our band of pilgrims, who were to be some forty or fifty in all, arrived -in detachments, having, as Sir Edward Goschen himself officially -described it, "been smuggled away from the Embassy in taxicabs by side -streets." The Ambassador himself was one of the last to turn up. No -Imperial emissary came to wish him a happy journey and _Auf -Wiedersehen_, though the Foreign Secretary deputized young Count Wedel -to say good-by in his name. The Kaiser's farewell greeting to Sir -Edward was conveyed the day before, when the All-Highest sent an -adjutant with majestic regrets for the sacking of the Embassy premises -on the night the war broke out. Of markedly less apologetic tenor was -the adjutant's message that William II, "now that Great Britain had -taken sides with other nations against her old allies of Waterloo, must -at once divest himself of the titles of British Field Marshal and -British Admiral." The uniforms, orders and decorations conferred on him -by Perfidious Albion had desecrated the exalted person of the supreme -Hohenzollern for the last time. In the memorable dispatch in which he -so dispassionately narrated his final hours in Berlin, Sir Edward -Goschen sufficiently indicated the true character of the Kaiser's -_adieu_ by mentioning that "the message lost none of its acerbity by the -manner of its delivery." As a Prussian officer was firing it at the -official incarnation of Great Britain, it is not difficult to imagine -the mien and tone of the proud functionary on whom had been conferred -the historic distinction of breathing Hate in the face of the foe at -that cataclysmic hour. - -I shall always hold it a privilege to have been in contact with Sir -Edward Goschen during the days which preceded the war and in the hours -of its beginning. He was throughout an object-lesson in -imperturbability. In the midst of his holidays in England when the -crisis arose, having left Kiel early in July with the British squadron, -he returned hurriedly to his post in Berlin just before the match was -applied to the powder-barrel. I recall distinctly the invincible state -of his good humor when I visited him at the Embassy on July 31, only an -hour or two before the Kaiser declared Germany to be in "a state of -war." - -"Wile," he remarked, fastening upon me a gaze which very successfully -simulated vexation, "what did you mean by libeling me in that dispatch -of yours from Kiel on the Kaiser's visit to our flagship? You had the -effrontery to suggest that I was lolling about the quarter-deck in a -tweed suit. I would have you understand that my costume afloat is -always the regulation navy-blue!" - -I pleaded color-blindness. I said that from our perch behind the -thirteen-and-one-half-inch gun turret for'd, it looked to me as if His -Excellency had actually worn tweed. - -"Well, I didn't," he insisted, "and you caused me to be twitted not a -little in London for my apparent ignorance of battleship etiquette." - -Sir Edward Goschen, unlike other British Ambassadors I knew in Berlin, -was never at any moment of his career there under any delusions as to -the _leitmotif_ of German policy toward Great Britain. No Teutonic wool -was ever pulled over his eyes. During the week of tension which ended -with war, he bore himself with tact and firmness characteristic of the -highest diplomatic traditions. Though never surrendering a position in -the trying negotiations with the Kaiser's Government, the Ambassador did -not cease, up to the hour when he asked for his passports, to labor for -such peace as would be consistent with British interests. It is not -customary in the British service, I believe, to send a diplomatic -official back to a country with which England has meantime been at war, -but Sir Edward Goschen could return to Berlin with his head high, -enjoying not only, I am sure, the limitless confidence of his own -Government, but the unalloyed respect of Germany, as well. - -Our party having been politely herded into the royal waiting-room of the -station, a couple of silk-hatted and frock-coated young Foreign Office -officials now buzzed busily about us, checking off our respective names -and identities on their duplicate lists, lest no unauthorized -_Engländer_ should escape through the ring of steel drawn tight around -Germany's frontiers. Our safe-conduct train had now pulled in. We -found ourselves a somewhat indiscriminate collection of refugees. -Besides Sir Edward Goschen, there was, of course, the full embassy -family of secretaries, attachés, clerks, the wives of one or two of -them, and one bonnie group of babes with their blue-and-white "nannies." -Sir Horace Rumbold, the Counselor of the Embassy, who had conducted the -initial negotiations with Germany, monocled and unruffled, was as calm -as if he were starting off for a week-end in the country. Captain -Henderson, the Naval Attaché, and a prince of sailormen, had no inkling -of the undying discomfiture soon to be his, as an ingloriously interned -captive in neutral Holland, for his first assignment from the Admiralty -was to command a detachment of the ill-starred naval expedition to -Antwerp. Colonel Russell, the Military Attaché, was quitting German soil -with emotions a little different from those of the rest of us, for he -had seen the light of day at Potsdam in 1874, while his late father, -Lord Ampthill, was British Ambassador to Germany. It was only a few -weeks previous that the colonel's own Berlin-born son had been -christened "William" under the august Godfatherhood of the Kaiser, who -sent the babe a golden cup emblazoned with the Hohenzollern arms. With -us, too, were Messrs. Gurney, Rattigan, Monck, Thomas and Astell, Sir -Edward Goschen's able staff of secretaries and young attachés, who had -all "sat tight," in their British way, so splendidly during the -preceding forty-eight hours. The official party also included the -British Minister to Saxony, Mr. Grant-Duff, and Lady Grant-Duff, whose -windows in Dresden had been broken, too, and Messrs. Charlton and Turner -of the Berlin and Leipzig consulates, respectively. - -The journalist-refugees consisted of Mackenzie and Jelf of _The Times_, -Tower and Nevinson of _The Daily News_, Long of _The Westminster -Gazette_, Lawrence of Reuter's Agency, Byles of _The Standard_, Dudley -Ward, of the _Manchester Guardian_ and his newly-wed German wife, and -Muirhead, the "camera man" of _The Daily Chronicle_. Poor Jelf, who -enlisted within a week after his arrival in England, was killed in -action during the great offensive fighting in Artois, in September, -1915. Among the others whom Sir Edward Goschen had rescued from the -maws of Hate was a little Australian woman, Mrs. Gunderson, trapped in -Germany with her husband at the outbreak of war. They had journeyed -around the world on their honeymoon to enable him to participate in an -international chess match at Mannheim. He has been stalemated ever -since at the British concentration camp at Ruhleben--Berlin. Then there -was an estimable old English couple who had spent a night in jail on the -charge of being "spies" prowling about the German countryside in their -touring-car. They were not bemoaning the loss of their automobile in -the presence of their own escape and that of their chauffeur. One of -the luckiest of our traveling companions was Captain Deedes, a British -army officer who was passing through Germany on his way home from -service in Turkey, and just gained the precincts of the British Embassy -before being nabbed by the police. We shuddered to think of the fate of -Captain Holland of the British navy, also en route from Constantinople, -who had not been so fortunate, and was now locked up at Spandau. I was -the sole and lonely American member of the caravan. - -The Germans provided Sir Edward Goschen with a "corridor train" of -first-class cars, including "saloon carriages," which are a combination -of parlor and sleeping cars, for himself and his immediate entourage, -and for Baron Beyens, the Belgian Minister to Berlin, and his staff, -who, appropriately enough, were conducted to the frontier along with the -British. Baron Beyens has contributed to the genesis of the war not the -least noteworthy evidence of Germany's felonious designs on European -liberties and peace. As has been revealed by a Belgian Grey Book, the -Baron was able to report to his government as early as July 26 that "the -German General Staff regarded war as inevitable and near, and expected -success on account of Germany's superiority in heavy guns and the -unpreparedness of Russia." Baron Beyens also described his final and -dramatic conversation with the German Foreign Secretary, who "announced -with pain" Germany's determination to violate Belgian neutrality, and -asked to be allowed to occupy Liége. The request was refused, Herr von -Jagow admitting to the Minister that no other answer was possible. The -Belgians had another "answer" up their sleeve, though von Jagow knew it -not. It was the shambles into which the flower of the German Guard -plunged at Liége a week later. - -[Illustration: Berlin newspaper refugees on S. S. St. Petersburg. From -left to right, standing: Muirhead; Wile; Jelf; Lawrence; Nevinson; -Captain Deedes; Dudley Ward. Seated, Mackenzie.] - -Lieutenant-Colonel von Buttlar, a dapper little gray-haired Prussian -officer with a Kaiser mustache and a heel-clicking manner, presently -approached Sir Edward Goschen, saluted, introduced himself as the -military chaperon of the party, and invited us to troop into the train. -An armed guard, a strapping infantryman with glistening bayonet affixed -to his shouldered rifle, was already aboard. He turned out, as did the -lieutenant-colonel himself, to be a very harmless warden. When the -_Oberstleutnant_, gloved and helmeted as if on dress parade, was not -snoozing or reading during the journey, he merely hovered about, -mother-like, to see that his charges were comfortable, as well as not up -to mischief. In addition to the ordinary train-crew, we were shepherded -by seven or eight plain-clothes Prussian detectives, whom even the ruse -of regulation railway-caps could not disguise. You can tell a German -"secret policeman," as he is idiomatically called, at least a mile off. -He is the last word in palpability. - -Our destination, we learned, was the Hook of Holland, where either a -Great Eastern steamer or a British cruiser would pick us up. We were to -travel via Hanover-Osnabrück to Amsterdam and thence to the sea. -Mackenzie, Jelf and I, having preempted a compartment, settled down at -the windows for a last long look at Berlin as the train now tugged -slowly out of the station, a few minutes past eight o'clock. Speaking -for myself, I am quite sure that railway trucks never rattled with such -sweet melody as those beneath us were producing, for with every chug -they were bringing us nearer to liberty. I remember a distinct feeling -of consciousness that I should not consider myself an utterly freed -felon until German territory was actually no longer under my feet. It -was an indescribably gratifying sensation, all sufficient for the -moment, to realize that Berlin at least was fading into oblivion. -Whether any of my British colleagues were throbbing with similar -emotions, I never knew. It is un-English, I believe, to reveal emotions -even if one is battling with them. Whatever thoughts were in their -minds, I myself was obsessed with a distinct desire, at that moment, to -blot Berlin from my mind for all eternity. Perhaps, as I thus -soliloquized, I was giving way unconsciously to a passing spell of that -unreasoning malice which infested hate-maddened Berlin. I suppose I -ought to have shed briny tears, as we skirted Spandau and sped across -the dreary plain of the Mark of Brandenburg, and familiar landmarks -passed from view. Certainly in the long ago, I had firmly made up my -mind that when my time to leave Germany came I should go away with -genuine regret. Life in the Fatherland had meant much to me and mine. -Although I never adopted it, like Lord Haldane, as my "spiritual home," -a man can not spend thirteen years of middle life in the same community, -however alien to its spirit and institutions, without forming -deep-rooted attachments. But the circumstances which precipitated me -out of Germany conspired, I fear, to quench old-time affection. So, -ungrateful as it may appear, my handkerchief was not brought into play -and my eyes were uncommonly dry as the sand-wastes of Brandenburg -vanished from our vision.... - -It was evident that we were in for a tedious journey and that our trek -across Western Germany was to be agony long drawn out. Berlin to -Hanover, the first leg of the trip, was one I had accomplished times -innumerable under three hours, and even a _Bummelzug_ hardly took -longer. It was to take us nearly three times as long to-day. -Mobilization was technically complete, but every railway track in the -country, especially if it fed the great trunk-line to the west along -which we were traveling, was still choked with troop trains. In -consequence, though ours was a "special," we had to halt, back up, -sidetrack and perform every other gyration of which a train is capable, -whenever we came up with battalions en route toward one of the three -frontiers on which German blood was now being spilled. At every station -we encountered trainloads of men in gray, singing, cheering and laughing -as if bound for a picnic instead of slaughter. It was always they who -had the right of way, for it was soon borne in upon us that the meanest -detachment of reservists bulked larger in Germany's eye just then than -"the whole bally British diplomatic service put together," as Jelf -irreverently expressed it. Never at any time were we doing anything -dizzier than twenty miles an hour, and we figured that if we reached -Hanover by dinner-time, we should be fortunate. As to London, which we -used to reach twenty hours after leaving Berlin, it became painfully -obvious that it would be nearer forty this trip. - -But there was much to see, and to think and talk about. As we were -being held up everywhere along the line by seemingly the entire male -population of the Empire in uniform, it was not surprising, for one -thing, to find the fields on either side of us as denuded of men as if -Adam had never lived. None but women was discoverable at work on this -eve of harvest, excepting here and there an old man, while children, -too, were being pressed into service. At bridges, culverts and -crossings, instead of the customary railway guards, who used to stand at -salute with a flag as a train whirled past, there were now soldiers with -rifles. No restrictions were placed upon our reconnoitering the -adjacent country as long as we were in motion; but Lieutenant-Colonel -von Buttlar, always heel-clicking and saluting beforehand, intimated to -_Mein Herren_ that the curtains of their compartment-windows must be -drawn as the train approached or halted at stations. There was no -suspicion, he begged to assure us, that we might attempt to practise -espionage about troop movements. On the contrary, the suggestion was a -precaution recommended in our own interests. Unfortunately, quoth the -apologetic colonel, it had not been feasible to conceal the identity of -our train. Western Germany was bursting with patriotic frenzy, and it -was just within the range of possibilities that their exuberance might -beat itself into disagreeable "demonstrations." Therefore, discretion -was obviously our cue. - -But what we could not see at Nauen, Rathenow, Stendal, Gardelegen, -Obisfelde and Lehrte, we could hear, for all the inhabitants of every -hamlet and town in Central Germany appeared to have orders from -somewhere to assemble at their railway-stations and sing themselves red -in the face for Kaiser and Empire. Manifestly the Supreme War Lord had -not only called up his armed legions, but mobilized the country's -_Singvereine_ besides, and man, woman and child of them were now in the -trenches with their throats bared to the foe. I suppose they were -chanting _Die Wacht am Rhein_ and _Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_ -in other parts of Germany, too, but I have often thought that the -country's most vociferous and tireless choral artists were concentrated -on that day on the strategic line of the British safe-conduct train's -route. If the Great General Staff at Berlin, with that incomparable -attention to detail which is one of its vaunted accomplishments, schemed -to send us out of Germany convinced, by the evidence of our own ears, -that the Kaiser's people were sallying forth to war like Wagnerian -heroes with music and triumphant cheers on their lips, the plan -succeeded. My own indelible recollection of that farewell ride across -Germany, at any rate, is the memory of song. For many days and nights -afterward, _Die Wacht am Rhein_ and _Deutschland, Deutschland über -Alles_, would ring and ring through my head. At the time it all seemed -beautifully spontaneous, for the Germans are a singing folk, who put -soul into their anthems, but reflection makes me wonder if that -continuous song-service which so mercilessly accompanied us from Berlin -to the Netherlands was not a stage-managed extravaganza with a motive. -The Germans are a thorough race, and in war they overlook no -opportunity. - -It was only at times that the singing was anything else than merely -monotonous--the periodical occasions when, if we halted longer than -usual at a station, the singers would line up alongside the train so -closely that they could fairly shout in our ears. Then there would be a -note of ill-mannered defiance in their song. At Hanover we happened to -be drawn up in the station at the very moment when the British -Ambassador and the Belgian Minister were in the dining-car, and there -was a particularly vehement vocal endurance competition outside of the -window at which they were sitting. But from my own table on the opposite -side of the car I observed that Sir Edward Goschen was not visibly -diverted from his _Wiener-Schnitzel_, for, while the _Deutschland, -Deutschland über Alles_ was doing its worst, he remarked, cheerily, to -his Belgian colleague: "Rather fine singing, isn't it?" - -Next to the songs which knew no ending the most conspicuous -manifestation of _Furor Teutonicus_ was the chalking of troop-trains -with exuberant inscriptions symbolical of expected great German -victories to come. "Special to St. Petersburg" was a prime favorite. -"Excursion to Paris" was extremely popular. That, we know, is exactly -what the War Party expected the campaign to be. "Through Train to -Moscow" ran a particularly sanguine sentiment and "Death to the -Blood-Czar," a more sanguinary one. Then there would be rude -caricatures of Nicholas II or President Poincaré either at the end of a -noose or of the boot of an equally rudely-cartooned Kaiser. And, of -course, there were plenty of jests at Great Britain. "We'll soon be -chewing roast-beef in London" was the way one artist epitomized his -hopes. "Special Train to the Peddler-City"--a shaft at London, the home -of the "shopkeeper nation" which "organized war against Germany" in -order to "crush an unpleasant commercial rival." "Death to our -enviers!" was the language in which another Anglophobe thought found -expression. Beneath the British Ambassador's car-windows, I was told, -some one had chalked a John Bull drooping ignominiously from the -gallows, with "Race-Traitor" for an epitaph! - -The night was fitful for us all. Curled up on the seats of our -compartments, such attempts at sleep as we ventured were effectually -defeated by _Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_ and _Die Wacht am -Rhein_. All through the night they were hurled at us. At every town, -regardless of the hour, the choristers were on the job. We welcomed our -arrival at Bentheim, the final station in Prussia, at seven next -morning, not half so eagerly because it was the last of Germany as -because it was the last of _Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_ and -_Die Wacht am Rhein_. For any sins we ever committed in the Fatherland, -we felt we had been richly chastised. I understood now why General -Sherman once crossed the Atlantic to escape _Marching through -Georgia_--only to be bombarded with it beneath his windows before -breakfast by an Irish band in Queenstown before he had been in Europe -twelve hours. I am morally certain that when old Tecumseh said that -"War is hell," he was thinking about _Marching through Georgia_. That -is what _Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_ made me think about -Armageddon. - -None of us experienced any special difficulty in restraining our -emotions when Lieutenant-Colonel von Buttlar and our other German -chaperons handed us over at Bentheim to a Dutch train crew awaiting our -arrival there with a Dutch locomotive. The colonel clicked and bowed -his farewell respects to Sir Edward Goschen and Baron Beyens, accepted -their appreciations of his courtesy and helpfulness, saluted for the -last time, and then formally transferred us to Queen Wilhelmina's tender -mercies. The hour of our liberation was at hand. And for the first -time in a week a score of Englishmen and at least one American thought -out aloud their opinions about Germany and all her works. What some of -us said about the Hohenzollerns has been put by Colonel Watterson in far -more immortal diction than my poor pen could epitomize it. - -[Illustration: Sir Edward Goschen, late British Ambassador in Berlin, -boarding S. S. St. Petersburg, en route to London, August 7th, 1914.] - -At Rozendaal, the first station in Holland, there was a wild scramble -from the newspaper coach for the railway telegraph-office. All of us -had reams of "copy" to release, after having been muzzled for five days. -German money, we were distressed to observe, was already at a discount -in the Netherlands, and those of us who did not hand in Dutch or British -gold had to put our "stuff" on the wire after more fortunate colleagues -had beaten us to it with legal tender. A couple of hours later found us -at Amsterdam, where representatives of the British Legation at The Hague -and the local Consulate-General were on hand to greet Sir Edward -Goschen's party and furnish us with the first news of actual war -operations which we had had. Fighting at sea had begun. England had -drawn first blood. The German mine-layer _Konigin Luise_, within -eighteen hours of the declaration of hostilities, _i.e._, on Wednesday, -August 5, was overtaken by the British destroyer _Lance_ and sunk in six -minutes. There was reason to fear that a fleet of enemy mine-layers, -masquerading as fishing-boats and in other pacific disguises, had been -occupied for the better part of a week strewing mines through an area -reaching from a point off Harwich--which we were soon to approach--along -the east coast far up into Scottish waters. On the next day, Thursday, -August 6, the British light cruiser _Amphion_ struck a mine planted by -the _Konigin Luise_ and went down with heavy loss of life. Much more -cheering was the news that gallant Belgium was giving the Germans a -welcome they had not bargained for. The Meuse was being gloriously -defended. Liége was menaced, but still untaken. Germans had been mown -down by the regiment--if reports could be believed--and we devoured them -eagerly. No news is ever so welcome as that which one longs to -hear--even before it is confirmed. - -The Hook was ready for us, we were told. The Great Eastern steamer _St. -Petersburg_ was there awaiting our arrival, having the night before -landed Prince Lichnowsky and the other members of the German Embassy in -London. The Kaiser's emissary had passed to the ship through a British -guard of honor, while shore batteries fired an ambassador's salute. How -like Sir Edward Goschen's slinking departure from Berlin, we thought! -Shortly after two o'clock the _St. Petersburg_ lifted anchor and amid -typical North Sea weather, raw, rainy and misty, got under way. Few -thought of German submarines at that time, but the Berlin Government, we -pondered, had not guaranteed Sir Edward Goschen "safe conduct" through -an indiscriminately sown field of floating mines. Quite obviously, we -had now to pass through a zone bristling with uncertainty, to put it -mildly. But we had not steamed far into the open sea before the sight -of a British torpedo-boat flotilla on patrol convinced us that we were -in a well-shepherded course. Then we had our first ocular demonstration -of Jellicoe's unremitting vigilance, for the crescent of destroyers far -forward now began rapidly to close in upon us. Our identity was -apparently not known to them, and they were taking no chances. "They -sent a shot across our bow yesterday, with the Germans on board," -explained the skipper of the _St. Petersburg_ to Captain Henderson, the -Naval Attaché, who was with him on the bridge. Captain Henderson was -not disturbed by the possibility of our getting an innocuous -three-pounder in our wireless rigging or some other harmless token of -the destroyers' solicitude, but he _was_ concerned lest so innocent a -craft should cause British destroyer captains to burn up valuable oil -fuel needlessly at such an hour. So the next I saw of Henderson he was -wig-wagging mysterious messages with signal-flags from the bridge of the -_St. Petersburg_, which told the destroyers, I suppose, that we weren't -in the slightest respect worthy of their attention or shell. They -wig-wagged something back which must have pleased Henderson, for -presently he clambered down smilingly from the upper regions, and said: -"_That's_ all right!" - -Harwich hove into view at what should have been sundown. By six o'clock -we were at the pier, boarded by the naval authorities of the port and -the customs-men. Sir Edward Goschen's party, after the Ambassador -himself had vouched for the identity of each and every one of us, was -disembarked without formalities, and at six-forty-five P.M. of Friday, -August 7, we found ourselves treading British soil. There were -policemen, soldiers, reporters and photographers on the dock, but no -formal welcoming delegation for the Ambassador. Somebody whispered to -him that a special train would convey him and his refugees to London, -and to it he took his way as undemonstratively as if he were a Cook's -tourist back from a "tripper's" jaunt to the Continent. I remarked to -Tower that I was afraid Americans would have made a real fuss over -Goschen if he were _our_ Ambassador home from the enemy's country; -whereupon _The Daily News_ man ejaculated something which was to ring in -my ears for a year or more, whenever I presumed to comment on that -strange phenomenon with which it is now my task to deal--England and the -English in war-time: "Wile, you Americans can not understand the English -character." Tower was right. - -An American is general manager of the Great Eastern Railway. I strongly -suspect that he must have had an alien hand in even the semblance of a -"demonstration" of greeting which Sir Edward Goschen encountered when -our train pulled into Liverpool Street Station a little after eleven -o'clock. I did not wait to watch it, nor even to claim my baggage, for -there was a hungry first edition waiting for my "story" at _The Daily -Mail_ office, and to Carmelite House I flew in the first taxi into which -I could leap. By midnight Beattie, the night editor, was tearing "copy" -from my hands as fast as an Underwood could reel it off, and it was -rapidly approaching breakfast-time when I called it a night's work and -went to bed--in England at last. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - COMPLACENCY RULES THE WAVES - - -More than once during the last phase of our exciting journey to England, -across the mine-strewn waters between the Hook and Harwich, I reflected -that I seemed doomed to take up my residence on British soil in -war-time. It was in the spring of 1900, in the anxious days between -Ladysmith and Mafeking, when the tide of victory was still running in -favor of the Boers, that I first arrived in London, and my lot was cast -there for the succeeding year and a half of the South African struggle. -I felt certain that the feverish interest with which even the sluggish -British temperament had followed every detail of a campaign ten thousand -miles away, and which engrossed only a fraction of the Empire's -strength, would pale into tepid insignificance compared to the concern -which would be generated by a tremendous European war only a -channel-crossing distant. But I had time for only one breakfast and one -morning's papers before I realized that John Bull had donned, even for -Armageddon, the garment in which his bosom swells the proudest--the -armor of invincible inexcitability. - -Actually the only wrought-up people in the British Isles during the -first week of the war appeared to be the frantic American tourist -refugees, who, of course, heavily outnumbered their brothers and sisters -in wretchedness whom I had left behind in Germany. If it had not been -for the frantic transatlantic sob and worry fraternity storming the -steamship and express companies' offices in Cockspur Street and the -Haymarket on the morning of Saturday, August 8, when I went out to look -for the war in London, no one could possibly have made me believe that -such a thing existed. Such portions of the community as had not started -for the links, the ocean, the river or the country "as usual" were -demeaning themselves as self-respecting, imperturbable Britons -customarily do on the edge of a "week-end." The seaside holiday season -was at its zenith. The immortal "Twelfth," when grouse-shooting begins, -was approaching. Everybody who was anybody was "out of town," and -stayed there. It was only those fussy, fretting Americans who insisted -upon losing their equilibrium and converting the most placid metropolis -in the universe into a bedlam of unseemly agitation and alarm. It was -"extraordinary," Englishmen said, how they resolutely declined to take a -lesson from the composite stolidity of Britain, preferring to give their -emotions unrestrained rein and to keep the cables hot in imperious -demands for ships, gold and other panaceas for the scared and stranded. -Which reminds me to say that traditional British hospitality to the -stranger within the gate was never showered more graciously on American -friends than in that trying hour. - -The British had worried a whole week about the war already. That was a -departure and a concession of no mean magnitude, for it is their boast -and pride that they _never_ "worry." Having, however, yielded to such -un-British instincts in the earliest hours of the crisis, they pulled -themselves together and swore a solemn resolve, come what may, not soon -again to succumb to indecorous habits which the world associated -exclusively with the explosive French or the irresponsibly impulsive -"Yankees." I felt instinctively that an effectual rebuke was being -administered to me personally by the writer of the following newspaper -review of London after three days of war: - - -"A new metal has come into the London crowd out of the crucible of these -last few days. The froth and fume of flag-wagging have evaporated; so, -too, have lifted bone-quaking mists of dread and suspense. Exultation -and depression are alike unhealthy. It is good that we are now free -from them. - -"The faces in the street are the barometers of the souls that men hide. -It does one's heart good to walk London and to behold that very notable -rise--apparent to every one and swift in its example--of the mercury of -the people. The great war took all our comprehensions unawares. -Although it has boded for years, it walked at last like an unbelievable -spectre into a warm and lighted room. What wonder that we were shaken? -What wonder at a creeping ague of the spirit in front of the unknown? - -"The dizziness has gone. The trial before us, black as it is, is not so -black as our anticipation of it. We have already surprised ourselves no -less than we have confounded our enemies by our rally and our readiness. -The financial situation is saved, the banks re-open, the food supplies -are safeguarded, and prices controlled. - -"A tremendous accession of calmness and reliance has come to the nation -by the appointment of Lord Kitchener to the War Office. The news that -the Army is in his hands, a rock of a man, has swept through London like -a vivifying breeze. - -"London is swinging back to as much of its normal life as possible. She -has found herself. She is bravely being the usual London--the great -city serene." - - -Far more profitable, obviously, than hunting war excitement was -examination of the causes which accounted for its absence, and to that I -forthwith devoted myself. In the first place, there was the navy, -"England's All in All." By a fortuitous circumstance, for which, with -all his faults, the Empire must render imperishable gratitude to its -young half-American First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, the -Fleet was instantly at its "war stations," fully mobilized, and in a -state of battle-readiness and general efficiency unparalleled in British -history. War maneuvers on an unapproached scale had been in progress -for the preceding fortnight or three weeks. Only the merest word of -command was wanting to convert the Grand Fleet into the battering-ram -and shield, to constitute which in the hour of emergency it had been -created. "Ringed by her leaden seas," which were held, moreover, by a -"supreme" armada, there seemed every justification for equanimity, for -the United Kingdom has no frontiers which an invading army can violate -as long as Britannia rules the waves. - -The domestic political situation, more menacingly turbulent than at any -time within the memory of living Englishmen, had been resolved with -miraculous rapidity and completeness. "Revolution" in Ulster, on which -the Germans had so fondly banked, vanished as effectually as if it had -never raised its head. "We will ourselves defend the coasts of -Ireland," declared John Redmond in the House of Commons in a speech -which will never die, "and I say to the Government that they may -to-morrow withdraw every one of their troops from Ireland." Mrs. -Pankhurst, freshly released from a periodical hunger-striking sojourn in -Brixton jail, announced that the suffragettes had stacked arms and now -knew only womankind's duty to England. That sent another Berlin dream -careening into oblivion. "His Majesty's Loyal Opposition" proclaimed in -Parliament through the mouth of the Conservative leader, Bonar Law, that -the Government's political opponents were prepared to accord it -"unhesitating support." In the Government itself the "Potsdam Party," -as that relentless iconoclast, Leo Maxse, long termed the coterie which -was for peace with Germany at almost any price, was either weeded out or -suppressed. Lord Morley, the Lord President of the Council; "Honest -John" Burns, still true to convictions, President of the Local -Government Board, and Charles P. Trevelyan, Parliamentary Secretary of -the Board of Education, unobtrusively retired from Mr. Asquith's -official family in consequence of their inability to sanction the war. -They have played their parts meantime with honorable consistency--by -maintaining an hermetical silence on questions of the war. And finally, -though primarily in popular judgment, Lord Haldane, the graduate of -Göttingen, the translator of Schopenhauer and the admirer of German -_Geist_, was driven by scandalized public opinion from the War Office, -whither he had just come as an "assistant" to the Prime Minister, whose -cabinet portfolio was the Secretaryship for War. Most of England sighed -with thankful relief when the able Scotch lawyer and philosopher whom -contemporary history accuses of responsibility for Britain's military -unpreparedness, beat an ignominious retreat back to his regular post, -the wool-sack, which, as Lord Chancellor, he by general consent -conspicuously adorned. The country's relief became enthusiastic -assurance when the lawyer, Asquith, himself retired from the War Office, -to make way for the soldier, Kitchener, who was recalled by telegram the -day before from Dover, just as he was about to board ship for Cairo, to -resume his duties as the ruler of Egypt. With the "Potsdam Party" -banished or made harmless, the Cabinet was now regarded as -satisfactorily purged. The public heard with boundless gratification -that the "strong men" of the Government--Grey, Lloyd-George and -Churchill--had been uncompromisingly for war from the start as the only -recourse compatible with British honor, to say nothing of the elementary -dictates of self-preservation. It was at length possible for Mr. -Asquith to assure the country that he presided over an administration of -whose unity of view and determination there was no shadow of a doubt--a -Government which was resolved, as Sir Edward Grey's great speech in the -House of Commons on August 3 set forth, to accomplish three cardinal -purposes: - - -1. To protect the defenseless French coast against attack by the German -navy; - - 2. To defend the integrity of Belgium; and - -3. To put forth all Britain's strength and not run away from the -obligations of honor and interest. - - -When the events of the Great War, and perhaps the chief actors in it -themselves, have passed away, some British historian will almost -certainly arise to tell the world the story--the "inside story"--of how -Mr. Asquith's cabinet, through three days and nights of doubts, -uncertainties, trials and tribulations, crossed the Rubicon to the shore -of unanimity on the subject of British participation. There were -moments, beyond all question, when that issue hung perilously in the -balance. The French Government's frantic eleventh-hour appeals for a -decision in Downing Street are mute evidence of the vacillation which -prevailed--a species of tentativeness which has never been missing from -the British conduct of the purely diplomatic affairs of the war. The -ministerial debates during which the die was cast in favor of war will -make immortal reading, even if only a digest of them is all that is -vouchsafed posterity. The "strong men" of the Government, if report is -reliable, were called upon to fight valiantly and ceaselessly to avoid -England's "running away from the obligations of honor and interest." -The tense interval which ensued while they were battering down the -trenches of skepticism, chicken-heartedness and nonchalance among their -Cabinet colleagues caused a delay which might easily have proved of -fatal import; for the decision to throw the strength of the British -army, as well as the navy, into the scales was under discussion, and it -is conceivable that the Expeditionary Force, which it was eventually -determined to send, might have been kept back for weeks, or even -altogether, instead of the mere days its dispatch was actually retarded. -Disaster incalculable would almost inevitably have resulted in that -event. - -The indispensable and all-governing preliminary measures for war in -respect of domestic politics, the Government and the naval and military -administration having thus been taken, equally radical precautions were -invoked to put the nation's economic house in order. The Stock -Exchange, following the lead of New York, Paris and Berlin, had shut -down as early as July 31, in order that mere insensate panic on the part -of the speculative and investing world might not degenerate into -irretrievable rout. War having descended with irresistible suddenness -during the "week-end" preceding the traditional August Bank Holiday -(Monday, the 3rd), a meeting of great financiers in the Bank of England -on the holiday itself decided to prolong it, as far as banks and bankers -were concerned, for three days, _i.e._, until Friday, the 7th, in what -turned out to be the well-grounded hope that public excitement would -meantime subside and prevent "runs" ruinous alike to banks and -depositors. A moratorium was established. The Bank discount-rate, -which had already vaulted from four to eight per cent., was now raised -to ten, an unheard-of figure, which effectually curbed the lust of -persons anxious to profit from war abnormalities or otherwise indulge in -operations not consistent with the gravity of the hour. - -[Illustration: Germans Anxious to Fly from England. Remarkable scenes -were witnessed outside the American Consulate, thousands of Germans -clamoring for passage back to Germany.] - -It was mainly these things--wholesome, substantial proofs that their -rulers had grappled with the situation with bold initiative that -inspired the people of London with reassurance, which, diluted with the -stoicism of the British character, became calm confidence Gibraltar-like -in its inflexibility. She had "the men," England was saying; she had -"the ships," and, Parliament having voted an initial war fund of one -hundred million pounds as unconcernedly as if it were a thousand-pounds -grant for a new switch-track at Woolwich arsenal, she unmistakably had -"the money," too. - -But even more self-comforting, if possible, than this iron trust in her -own inexhaustible resources was England's conviction in the -invincibility of her Allies. Was not even little Belgium holding back -the flower of the German army before Liége? Even in the unlikely event -of Liége's fall, would not the impregnable fortress of Namur provide -Krupp guns with a still tougher nut to crack? Those were, alas! the -hours in which the existence of the forty-two-centimeter siege gun was -not even mooted in ostrich England. France? The Germans would find a -vastly different antagonist awaiting them this time in the Ardennes, the -Vosges passes and along the Meuse and the Sambre. There was a "New -France," a France of _élan_ and iron. It was the virile Republic of -Poincaré, Delcassé, Joffre, Bleriot, Pegoud and Carpentier, with which -the Prussian hosts must this time measure lances, not the degenerate -Empire of the third Napoleon, which crumbled at Sedan and Metz and -surrendered Paris. Russia? "Can't you just hear the steam-roller -rumbling across East Prussia and thundering at the gates of Berlin?" a -great English peer asked me, in all seriousness, during my first week in -London. "Isn't the tread of the Czar's countless millions, pounding -remorselessly toward the west, almost audible?" he persisted. Millions -of Englishmen were thinking and saying the same thing. As for the -German army, almost as many of them were convinced that that -"over-organized, peace-stale" military establishment, which was a -magnificent spectacle on parade, but lacked leaders experienced in -modern campaigning, would crash to pieces not only against "superior -numbers" but against Allied troops and commanders who had been fighting -great wars this past quarter of a century in Africa and Asia. London's -feelings toward Germany seemed, indeed, almost compassionate. Many -people, otherwise sane, talked about the war being over by Christmas. -The Kaiser's navy would come out and be smashed, they calculated, and -such work as had not already been accomplished by the Allied armies -within the Fatherland's eastern and western frontiers would soon be -completed by "internal collapse," industrial stagnation, national -impoverishment and universal starvation. Poor Germany! She had brought -it on herself. Her end, after a peace soon to be dictated in Berlin, -would manifestly be speedy and annihilating. The Social Democrats, it -was true, were bamboozled into support of the war by fictitious -assurances that the sword had been "forced" into Germany's unwilling and -blameless hand, but the scales would presently fall from their eyes, and -then woe betide whatever remained of the Hohenzollerns' ravished, -defenseless realm! Street-hawkers in the Strand were selling blatant -copies--a penny each--of _The Kaiser's Last Will and Testament_. Would -William II be sent to St. Helena, like the other Napoleon, or be -interned in some more accessible point in the British Empire, to pass -the remaining days of his humiliation and remorse? And the "Crown -Prince" with him, of course. These were the reveries of Britain in the -early days of August, 1914. Nothing disturbed them except the creaking -and the rumbling of the Russian steam-roller. Those being dulcet -reverberations, John Bull paused eagerly in the midst of his musings to -let them lull him into a still deeper siesta of optimism.... - -Serene and imperturbable as the vast majority of Englishmen were, the -responsible leaders of the nation were under no delusions as to the -magnitude of the task now confronting them. To the country's intense -astonishment, though Lord Roberts had been dinning it in their ears -incessantly for at least five years previous, England found itself in a -state of practical impotence as far as effective participation in modern -large-scale military operations was concerned. In the same five minutes -during which Parliament voted one hundred million pounds as a first war -credit, it also sanctioned an increase of the British army by five -hundred thousand men. At that moment the Home military establishment, -which was immediately mobilized as "The British Army Expeditionary -Force" when England decided to enter the war with her soldiers as well -as her sailors, consisted of eight divisions of all arms--roundly, one -hundred fifty thousand men. An organization of another half-million -troops, officered and equipped for a great Continental campaign, could -not be stamped out of the ground. Its production, even in a country -with the glorious military traditions of England, was manifestly fraught -with stupendous difficulties. There was no mistrust of British -patriotism; but when men recalled the futility of Lord Roberts' efforts -to implant in England's conscience the necessity of some form of -National Service--how he not only failed, but was ridiculed and vilified -for pursuing his sagacious crusade in the face of merciless rebuff--and -when inherent British repugnance to "soldiering" and even to wearing -uniforms was remembered, there were widespread misgivings. - -Prussian militarism long filled me with abhorrence. I had learned to -detest it not as an institution, but for its numerous disgusting -manifestations, principally the arrogance of its gilded popinjays and -the brutal and overweening contempt in which their traditions and -training taught them to hold mere civilian microbes. Yet in those -frantic hours when hopelessly unready military England was compelled to -patch up an army for battle against the world's most scientific -war-machine, I pondered what a blessing a little "militarism" would have -been for the British democracy. I had seen Germany trooping off to war, -singing, cheering and flower-garnished; and I knew that her debonair -demeanor was due less to lust for the fray--the great mass of the nation -was animated by no such sentiment as that--than to the realization, -which sprang from immutable facts and numbers, that her citizen army was -equal to almost any emergencies it would be called upon to meet. -Germany was a nation in arms. England was a nation in difficulties. -How grotesquely unprepared to play a commensurate part in a military -war, compared to her Continental allies and foes, this table showing the -size of the various armies indicates: - - Peace footing War footing Guns - - Great Britain ............... 234,000 380,000 1,000 - Austria-Hungary ............. 500,000 2,200,000 2,500 - France (including Algeria) .. 790,000 4,000,000 4,200 - Germany ..................... 850,000 6,000,000 5,500 - Russia ...................... 1,700,000 7,000,000 6,000 - - -Lord Kitchener was obviously the man of the hour. An organizer -primarily, rather than a strategist, tactician or field-marshal, his -appointment to the War Secretaryship demonstrated that whoever was -responsible for it--men say it was Lord Northcliffe--recognized -instantly the all-overshadowing requirement: a recruiting sergeant. -Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, would necessarily retain the -supreme direction of the Allied forces operating against the German -front in France and Belgium. England's part was to send him men. And -the one to find, drill and equip them was unmistakably Kitchener of -Khartum, South Africa, India and Egypt, the "organizer" of victory -against the fuzzy-wuzzies and the Boers, the disciplinarian who had -galvanized the Indian army into new life, and the administrator who was -licking Egypt into Imperial shape. There would be time enough for the -war itself to produce another Wellington or Roberts. What was needed now -was men, rifles and guns, cartridges, shells and uniforms, war-planes, -motor-lorries and hospital-trains and all the other innumerable -impedimenta of modern man-killing. The summoning to the task of the big -bluff soldier who first saw the light in County Kerry, who was looked -upon as the incarnation of initiative and relentless efficiency, and who -had proved his right so to be considered, was elementary and inevitable. -It was work for a "sergeant-major" and a "drill-sergeant" rather than -for a Napoleonic genius; and when England learned that "K.," as he is -affectionately known in the army, was on the prodigious job, England -took heart. She responded with a will to his first appeal for men. The -hoardings of the Kingdom were plastered with it on the morning of August -8. It read as follows: - - +------------------------------------------------------------------+ - | | - | YOUR KING AND COUNTRY | - | NEED YOU. | - | | - | A CALL TO ARMS | - | | - | An addition of 100,000 men to his Majesty's Regular Army | - | is immediately necessary in the present grave National | - | Emergency. | - | | - | Lord Kitchener is confident that this appeal will be at once | - | responded to by all those who have the safety of our | - | Empire at heart. | - | | - | TERMS OF SERVICE | - | | - | General Service for a period of 3 years or until the war is | - | concluded. | - | | - | Age of Enlistment between 19 and 30. | - | | - | HOW TO JOIN | - | | - | Full information can be obtained at any Post Office in the | - | Kingdom or at any Military depot. | - | | - | GOD SAVE THE KING! | - | | - +------------------------------------------------------------------+ - - -In the past England's volunteer army had been maintained by a recruiting -system which produced, on the average, about thirty-five thousand new -men a year. They did not come easily, even in halcyon peace times, and -the gaily-caparisoned recruiting-sergeant in Trafalgar Square, who would -buttonhole a hundred likely "Tommies" in a day, earned well his fee if -he succeeded in inducing ten of them to "take the shilling." It -remained to be seen if "the present grave National Emergency" would find -dormant in Britain military talent and inclination hitherto undreamt of. -In the opening flush of the excitement and enthusiasm which the war -engendered, Lord Kitchener's hopes were satisfactorily realized. -Recruiting-offices in numerous districts were literally stormed. The -response from the middle, "upper-middle" and upper classes was -particularly buoyant. Duke, peer, aristocrat, nobleman, "nut," banker, -lawyer, doctor, merchant, teacher and clerk came forward splendidly. -But artisan, docker and miner lagged. The lower class revealed an -inclination to continue to throng the public-houses rather than the -recruiting-offices. It seemed evident at the outset that it was not -they who were bent on saving England. They gave disquieting indication -that their sort of patriotism was primarily individual -self-preservation, that for them, love of country began at home. A -waking-up process in their unenlightened ranks was destined to come to -pass, thanks mainly to "separation allowances" for missus and the kids, -but it was never to attain the dimensions of a rousing which extorted -from their atrophied intelligence even an approximate appreciation of -their obligations or their country's peril. Britain's war is being -waged, as it will be won--speaking broadly--by the patriotism and blood -of the excoriated upper ten thousand. The struggle had been in progress -for more than a year, at a cost of nearly five hundred thousand British -casualties, when it was still necessary for Lloyd-George to remind -working-class England, in as unqualified language as a politician dare -speak to the nation's electoral masters, that it was not doing its full -duty. - -While Britain at large still hugged the delusion of easy victory, in -grotesque underestimation of the enemy's power, and while Kitchener's -recruit-finding machinery was being put in vigorous motion, the War -Office, in co-operation with the navy, was accomplishing as magnificent -a piece of military work as army annals hold--the silent landing of the -British Expeditionary Force of one hundred and sixty thousand men, with -its full complement of horses, guns and stores, on the shores of France. -That feat will live as immortal disproof of the charge popular in the -United States that "hustle" is a word which is conspicuously missing -from the British lexicon. Compared to it, our "hustle" in landing an -army in Cuba in 1898 was the quintessence of procrastination and muddle. -The British railways had been taken over by the Government coincident -with the arrival of war, an "Executive Committee" consisting of the -General Managers of the main companies having been established more than -a year previous as an advisory council for such an emergency as had now -supervened. Embarkation of the Expeditionary Force commenced on the -night of August 7th. Admiral Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand -Fleet, assured Lord Kitchener that the channel passage was as safe as -the Thames itself. The British public, receiving its first lesson in -relentless censorship of war news, was kept so effectually in the dark -as to the dispatch of the largest army which ever left English shores -that it knew nothing whatever of it till the host was at its -destination, with breasts bared to the foe. The landing of Sir John -French's legions on the soil of France was accomplished, complete in -every detail, by August 17th. - -British railways, when the record of that marvel of transportation is -compiled, will share the honors with the ironclads of Britain's navy and -the liners of her mercantile marine. Southampton being the main port of -departure, the performance of the London and Southwestern Railway, which -has carried so many thousand Americans in pacific days from Waterloo -Station to the ship's side, is a case in point. I heard Sir H. A. -Walker, the "Southwestern's" general manager make before the American -Luncheon Club in London the first announcement of the railways' part in -England's military mobilization. With his subsequent permission, I was -privileged to give the British public its first information on that -subject. The L. & S. W. had been assigned the task of making ready for -dispatch to Southampton within sixty hours three hundred and fifty -trains of thirty cars each. It did the trick in forty-five hours. -During the first three weeks of war there were dispatched to and -unloaded at the ships' sides seventy-three of such trains every fourteen -hours. They arrived from the four quarters of the kingdom, and none of -them was late. "I come from the land of 'big railway stunts,'" said -Henry W. Thornton, the American general manager of the Great Eastern -railway when Sir H. A. Walker had told this convincing story of British -"hustle." "We think we are 'pulling off' some feat when we handle -G.A.R. encampments and national conventions, but what British railways -accomplished in the ten days between August 7 and 17 last may fairly be -claimed as a unique record in railway history." What Mr. Thornton -modestly failed to add was that he himself, as a colleague presently -bore testimony, had played a conspicuous rôle in the drama of British -military mobilization. Certain inanimate things, almost as well known -to Americans as Mr. Thornton, played big parts, too. The palatial -_Mauretania_, with her _suites de-luxe_ battered into cargo-room for -Tommy Atkins, and her big new sister, _Aquitania_, with only a maiden -crossing or two to her credit, similarly knocked to pieces, made -incessant trips back and forth between Southampton and other channel -ports to Dieppe, Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk, landing in France on each -occasion no less than five thousand British fighting-men, ready for -death and glory. - -Each mother's son of them carried with him this little personal message -from Lord Kitchener: - - -"You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French -comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a -task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. - -"Remember that the honour of the British army depends on your individual -conduct. It will be your duty, not only to set an example of discipline -and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to maintain the most -friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. -The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, take -place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no better -service than in showing yourself in France and Belgium in the true -character of a British soldier. - -"Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything -likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting as a -disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome, and to be -trusted; your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust. Your -duty can not be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly on -your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may find -temptations in wine and women. You must entirely resist both -temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you -should avoid any intimacy. - -"Do your duty bravely. -"Fear God. -"Honour the King. -"KITCHENER, Field-Marshal." - - -I remained in England only a week after my arrival from Germany. Part -of the time had been pleasantly spent editing a special "American -edition" of _The Times_ for Lord Northcliffe, who placed the full -machinery of his journalistic organization at the disposal of the -"Yankee War Refugees." He was only prevented from extending them the -hospitality of Sutton Place, his lovely estate in Surrey, now a -hospital, for a "week-end" outing by the inability of the railways to -guarantee the necessary special train facilities. To my astonishment -but unalloyed delight Lord Northcliffe "ordered" me to take a month's -vacation in the United States. He thought my family and kinsmen would -like to have a look at an "English spy," fresh from Germany, before the -earmarks of his nefarious trade had entirely evaporated, and so, having -obtained the last bunk left on that veteran Cunard hulk, _S.S. -Campania_, which had brought my wife and me to Europe on our honeymoon -voyage, I sailed away from Liverpool on Saturday, August 15th, along -with twelve hundred or fifteen hundred other sardines packed in an -eighteen-knot steel box. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - PRO-ALLY UNCLE SAM - - -Somewhere in E. W. Hornung's _Raffles_, there is this homely bit of -epigrammatic philosophy: - -"Money lost, little lost. Honor lost, much lost. Pluckiest, all lost!" - -The aphorism was paraphrased by my fellow war refugees in the -_Campania_, tucked away in couples, trios, quintettes and baker's dozens -into cabins which the Cunarder's designers back in the dim mid-Victorian -past built for a half or a third as many passengers. - -They made it read like this: - -"Baggage lost, all lost!" - -Now and then some particularly sentimental soul would spare a -humanitarian thought for the minor horrors of the calamity which had -fallen upon Europe and civilization. But his heart would not throb for -long when somebody would break in upon his maudlin reflections with a -really harrowing tale of trunks left behind in Berlin, Hamburg or -Cologne, in Carlsbad, Lucerne or Ostend, at the Gare du Nord in Paris, -or the quayside in Boulogne or Calais; or of suit-cases and -"innovations" lost, strayed or stolen in the maelstrom of military -traffic in Germany, Belgium or France; or of Packards, Peerlesses, -Studebakers or Overlands summarily abandoned somewhere in the war zone. -What were Europe's travails to these genuine disasters? It was all -right for the war-mad Continent to deck itself in battle-paint if -sanguinarily inclined, but ruthlessly and without notice to break up -Americans' traveling plans, knock Cook tours into a cocked hat, -interrupt "cures," and on top of that, if you please, actually to play -ducks and drakes with the personal effects of free-born American -citizens--all because, forsooth, eight or ten million troops required -the right of way and insisted upon getting it--that was manifestly the -last word in inconsiderateness. Incidentally, of course, it denoted how -hopelessly inefficient Europe was, anyway, in the presence of a sudden -emergency. Why, the general manager of a cross-town transfer company in -New York would have tackled the job without turning a hair. Bah! It -served Americans right--quoth a promenade-deck psychologist. Year in -and year out they'd been lavishing "good United States dollars" on -Europe, and this was her gratitude to her best paying guests. There was -no dissent from the view, which prevailed from rudder to bow, that it -was the ragged edge of what Bostonians call "the limit." "See America -first!" ceasing to be mere admonition, was burnt there and then into the -hearts of our baggage-bereft ship's company with all the force of a -fervid national aspiration. "Never again!" was the way my Chicago -millionairess deck-chair neighbor, who looted the Rue de la Paix -annually, sententiously epitomized not only her aggrieved sentiments, -but those of nearly everybody else. All swore a virtuous vow henceforth -to practise the stay-at-home habit and for the rest of eternity let -man-killing Europe wallow in its savagery. - -The story of the exodus which the Second Book of Moses records will -probably outlive the flight of the children of Columbia across the -Atlantic in the summer of 1914. But that hegira will outrank its -Egyptian prototype in one gleaming respect--its atmosphere of -indomitable good humor, once the Campanians surmounted the initial stage -of "grouch," groaning and gnashing of teeth. - -Bank presidents and college professors willing to be buffeted across the -ocean in the steerage; society women who bunked contentedly on sofas in -the "ladies' saloon" of the stuffy second cabin; Pittsburgh plutocrats -game enough to sleep six in a stateroom built for four; pampered folk -with French _chefs_ at home, who sat uncomplainingly through the -interminable and usually refrigerated "second serving" in the -_Campania's_ old-fashioned dining-room; corporation lawyers with incomes -the size of a King's civil list, who considered themselves lucky to have -captured the hammocks of the fourth engineer or the hospital attendant -in the odoriferous hold; all these compatriots, grinning and bearing, -proved that after all we are the most adaptable people on earth. After -each and all of us had exchanged tales of woe--everybody had one, even -Doctor Ella Flagg Young, the septuagenarian Superintendent of Chicago's -public schools, who was chased out of the war-zone across Scandinavia -into England--and swapped stories of arrest or less thrilling -inconveniences, and abused the incompetent authorities of the -belligerent governments to our hearts' content, with a slap now and -then, to vary the monotony, at our own United States--the _Campania's_ -passengers soon shook down to what turned out to be as jolly a crossing -as any of us, I dare say, ever had. Between thrills about imaginary -"German cruisers" and equally fantastic "rumbling of naval artillery," -and our amusing discomforts, the week passed almost before we knew it, -and more quickly than some of us even wished. There was, of course, that -irrepressible Illinois State Senator who circulated a petition to -"censure" the Cunard line for not sending us all home in the -_Aquitania_, even though the British Government had requisitioned her -for transport work; but a much more popular note was struck by my young -friend, Miss Marjorie Rice, a typical New York belle, who collected a -couple of hundred dollars with which to present Captain Anderson with a -souvenir of our gratitude for having so gallantly brought us through -invisible dangers. German cruisers were still roaming in the Atlantic, -and, though we traveled at night with masked lights and took various -other precautions like an occasional zigzag course, one never could -tell, though I think most of us banished all thought of peril once we -heard that British ironclads were keeping a lane of safety for Uncle -Sam's fretting sons and daughters all the way from Fastnet to the Fire -Island lightship. Asked by the ship's officers to tell "How the Germans -Went to War" at the last-night-out concert, to which the Cunard Line -with British reverence for tradition still religiously adheres, I could -confidently interpret the sentiment of every American aboard in voicing -deep thankfulness for the fact that Britannia ruled the waves. Going -back with us to the United States was a batch of three or four young -Germans, evidently of university education, because their jowls were -embellished with saber-cuts. They had been stopped in England on their -way home to fight, but were graciously permitted to return whence they -came. Timorous friends beseeched me to beware of "saying too much" about -the Germans in the hearing of these would-be soldiers of the Kaiser; but -I escaped molestation and even heard next day that I had been "most -fair." - -Not till many days after we landed in New York did I know that two very -eminent representatives of Allied Powers were sandwiched among the -_Campania's_ home-fleeing American passengers--Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, -British Ambassador at Washington, and his colleague of France, the -cultured Monsieur Jusserand. They had crossed in impenetrable incognito. -Not only were their names missing from the passenger-list, but if they -had ever promenaded or eaten or smoked, they must have done it in -solitary enjoyment of their own exclusive society, as nobody during -seven whole days and nights ever heard of them or saw them, or, what is -vastly more miraculous aboard-ship, ever even talked about them. -American newspapermen afloat in a liner like to flatter themselves that -nothing with even the remotest odor of news ever escapes their -insatiable quest. I had myself bored with strenuous pertinacity into -every news-well in the _Campania_, and there were many. But Spring-Rice -and Jusserand eluded me as thoroughly as if they had been contraband -stored away in the hold, or stokers who only come to life out of the -black hole of Calcutta once or twice a trip, when everybody with a white -face is tight asleep. Bernstorff came in two days later like a brass -band. The British and French Ambassadors broke into the United States, -apparently, in felt-slippers through a back door on a dark night. The -manner of the respective arrivals of the German and the Allied -Ambassadors was to be characteristic of their conduct in the country -throughout the war. - -On Monday, August 24, I was lunching at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. -Bernstorff had landed that forenoon in the Dutch liner, _Noordam_. To -my astonishment, the Ambassador, whom I had noticed lunching a few -tables away with James Speyer, arose and advanced across the restaurant -to where I was sitting. Bernstorff and I were old acquaintances. I -liked him. Most newspapermen did. Through long residence in Washington, -he had acquired an almost Rooseveltian art in dealing with us. I used -to see him regularly during his periodical official visits to Berlin, -having known him professionally from the days he was Councillor of the -German Embassy in London during the Boer War. Few Americans are aware -that Count Bernstorff was born in England while his father was serving -as Prussian Minister to the Court of St. James. History was destined to -repeat itself in the case of the son, who not only adopted the career of -his father, but when he became an ambassador to a neutral country during -one of Germany's wars was called upon to occupy himself just as the -elder Count Bernstorff had done in London in 1870-71. The father put in -most of his time in England in a vain endeavor to persuade Queen -Victoria's Government to place an embargo on shipment of British arms -and ammunition to the French. He failed as lamentably in that effort as -his son and heir was destined to do in the United States under almost -identical circumstances forty-four years later. - -Smiling his most persuasive diplomatic grimace, Count Bernstorff went -straight to the object of his luncheon-table call on me. - -"Wile," he began, "you've gone back on us! I can see your hand at work -in the attitude the _New York Times_ has taken up." - -I could not imagine at what the genial Count was driving. Perhaps he -had read in the preceding day's _Times_ my long account of the -beginnings of the war as I observed them in Berlin, or my introduction -to _The Times'_ exclusive publication of the German White Paper, printed -that day. - -"Your Excellency flatters me," I ventured to rejoin. "I have only been -in the country since Saturday night, and my activities at _The Times_ -office have been limited to the very prosaic duty of handing in several -wads of 'copy' written aboard-ship." - -But Bernstorff knew better. I had poisoned the atmosphere of Times -Square against Germany's holy cause. He insisted upon thrusting upon me -some occult influence over Mr. Ochs, _The Times'_ able proprietor, and -Mr. Miller, its brilliant editor, and said he was going to see somebody -or other at _The Times_ later in the day and "fix things up." Judging -by the rivers of interviews which thenceforth flowed in an unceasing -torrent from the Ambassador's headquarters in the Ritz-Carlton, he must -have seen not only some _Times_ men, but nearly all the journalists in -Greater New York. How satisfactorily he "fixed things up" with the -great newspaper which has proved to be the Allies' most consistent and -effective supporter in the United States could be judged from next -morning's edition, which was about as anti-Bernstorffian as could be -imagined. The Imperial German Press-Agent's palaver about his ability -to "fix things up" was bombast, pure and unalloyed. There was never the -slightest possibility that he could "fix" anything in the _New York -Times_ office or in any American newspaper office where self-respect, -journalistic honor and rugged independence are enthroned. There are -American newspapers which lay no claim to these virtues, and their names -are undoubtedly, and long have been, carefully card-indexed at 1435 -Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D.C. Some of their owners have -decorations bestowed by the Kaiser. - -It proved to be a rare stroke of Fate which took me to the Ritz-Carlton, -for I was destined to be an eyewitness of the assemblage of the Kaiser's -Great General Staff for the Germanization of American public opinion on -the war. Doctor Dernburg had arrived in the _Noordam_ with Count -Bernstorff, and along with them came Captain Boy-Ed, the Naval Attaché -at Washington. I knew personally, from Berlin days, both the -ex-Colonial Secretary and the sailor. Dernburg, before he was -pitchforked into Government office from the comparatively humble station -of a bank director in 1906, was the most approachable of men. His -command of the American language was remarkable--an inheritance from his -youth, part of which was spent as a volunteer clerk in a Wall Street -bank. I never forgot my first call on him in Germany. I assumed him to -be a Jew, as his father was. Some Semitic question of public interest -was the news of the moment, and I regarded Dernburg an ideal man to -interview. With a smile I recall how, insistently disavowing his -origin, he told me I had come to "the wrong address." Later I watched -his tempestuous career as administrator of the barren sand-wastes known -as German colonies, saw him give electioneering in the Fatherland a new -phase with his shirt-sleeves campaigning methods, and observed his -meteoric rise to Imperial grace and political power, so soon to be -followed by his equally precipitate fall from those dizzy heights. -Dernburg's lack of manners and tact was commonly said in Berlin to have -led to his official demise after less than four years of Cabinet glory. -No one ever questioned his eminent ability. But his reputation as a -banker rested on cold-blooded ruthlessness, and when he attempted to -carry those methods into a bureaucratic government department, he struck -snags which wrecked his bark. Neither he nor I supposed on August 24, -1914, when we chatted in the palm-court of the Ritz-Carlton, that his -attempt to transplant Berlin ruthlessness into the United States would -eventually prove his undoing there, too. - -Captain Boy-Ed, as subsequent history was also to show, was bent on -practising in America the tactics which won him renown and promotion in -Germany. Prior to coming to Washington as Count Bernstorff's Naval -Attaché--the Kaiser had decided that the United States navy was -attaining dimensions which required watching by a shrewd observer--the -captain was von Tirpitz' right-hand man at the Imperial Admiralty in -Berlin. He had charge of the so-called News Division, nominally -entrusted with the duty of informing the German public of "routine naval -intelligence, such as accidents, transfers of ships and officers, etc., -etc.," as I once heard von Tirpitz persuasively and naïvely describe the -functions of the _Nachrichten-Abteilung_ during a periodical plea to the -Reichstag for more dreadnoughts. Boy-Ed, the son of a Turkish father -and a German mother, devoted himself chiefly in the years between 1906 -and 1912 to conducting von Tirpitz' astute propaganda for naval -expansion. It was the era in which the Kaiser's fleet was being -converted by leaps and bounds from a navy of obsolete -thirteen-thousand-ton ships of the _Deutschland_ and _Braunschweig_ -class into an armada of dreadnoughts and battle cruisers of the -eighteen-thousand to twenty-four-thousand-ton "all-big-gun" -_Ost-Friesland_ and _Seydlitz_ class. German public opinion required to -be carefully manipulated in order to secure parliamentary sanction for -"supplementary" appropriations which rose by stealthy degrees from -$60,000,000 to $115,000,000 a year. Boy-Ed was assigned the responsible -duty of organizing and carrying out the necessary campaign of education, -and right well and thoroughly he did it. The shoals of pamphlets, -books, newspaper-articles, public-lectures, Navy League speeches and -other "educational" matter with which the Fatherland was flooded--always -with "England, the Foe" as the _leitmotif_,--were to a large extent the -child of Boy-Ed's resourceful brain. He did not write them all, of -course, but he was their inspirer-in-chief. I account him one of the -real creators of the modern German navy, second only to von Tirpitz -himself. It was "the chief's" idea, but Boy-Ed made its materialization -a practical possibility. - -Knowing his methods, no revelations of his pernicious activities in the -United States ever surprised me. He was only up to his old tricks, -altering them to suit the American climate and character, but adhering -always to certain basic principles which had stood him in such good -stead in the Fatherland. It would be ungrateful of me not to -acknowledge numerous professional courtesies received at Boy-Ed's hands -when he was misleading the press of Germany and the world at the -News-Division in Leipziger-Platz, Berlin. He nearly had me arrested at -the Imperial dockyard in Wilhelmshaven in March, 1907, for gaining -access, despite thoroughgoing preventive measures, to the launch of -Germany's first dreadnought, the _Nassau_, but during his career at the -Admiralty he more than made up for that by enabling me, in the columns -of _The Daily Mail_, to be the medium of a formal discussion between von -Tirpitz and the British naval authorities on the endlessly controversial -question of Anglo-German sea rivalry. For the best "copy" it was ever -my good fortune to send across the North Sea, my unwithering gratitude -is due and is hereby expressed to the shifty chieftain of Germany's -war-time "intelligence service" in the United States. - -Who else besides Bernstorff, Dernburg, Boy-Ed and Speyer attended the -opening council of war of the German field-marshals in the United States -that broiling August day at the Ritz-Carlton, I never learned with -certainty. Dernburg assured me that as far as he was concerned, purely -humanitarian business had brought him to our generous shores; he had -come to collect funds for the German Red Cross, and he once wrote me a -letter on paper emblazoned with that worthy organization's innocuous -trade-mark. I suspect that before the day was over, Professor -Münsterberg of Harvard, Poet Viereck of _The Fatherland_, and Herman -Ridder paid their respects to the propaganda-chieftains, and received -their orders; and probably Julius P. Mayer, the New York manager of the -Hamburg-American Line, and Claussen, his expert "publicity manager," -left their cards, too. Evidently James Speyer thought his sequestered -and palatial home at Rhinebeck-on-the-Hudson, far from the madding -sleuths of the New York press, was a more ideal retreat for so momentous -a pow-wow, for it was to that idyllic refuge that Count Bernstorff told -me he was immediately repairing. Purely diplomatic affairs at -Washington could obviously wait on the more transcendent business the -Imperial German Ambassador now had in hand; and before he quit the banks -of the Hudson for the shores of the Potomac, the Fatherland's marvelous -attack on the natural sympathies of the American Republic in the great -war was launched with all the force, skill and impudence of a German -assault on the frontier of a foe. - -New York was clearly more feverishly interested in the war than London. -Nowhere in Fleet Street had I seen such vibrant throngs in front of -newspaper-offices, as stood eager and transfixed by day and far into the -night in Times and Herald Squares, Columbus Circle and Park Row. -America might have been in the fray herself, to judge by the one -absorbing topic which dominated men and women's talk and obsessed their -thoughts. Detached as we were, it was unmistakable that Europe's agony -had eaten deep into our souls, for even the baseball bulletin-boards -were now deserted in favor of those which were telling in breathless -telegrams of the German cannon-ball plunge through Belgium toward the -fatal Marne and of Russia's seemingly irresistible advance into East -Prussia. I had heard no Englishman arguing about the issues of -Armageddon or the kaleidoscopic events of the battlefield with half the -flaming ardor of those Broadway war experts. In fact there were no -blackboards at all around which the British could hold curbstone -parliaments, for Lord Kitchener's censorship was not parting with news -enough, apparently, to make even the chalk worth while. In London I had -observed the inexplicable phenomenon that at the moment when hell had -broken loose for the British Empire, great journals, instead of deluging -the public with news, actually reduced their ordinary size in some cases -to four pages, though I believe that fear of a print-paper famine and -disappearance of advertising had something to do with those atrophied -dimensions. All in all, however, there was no doubt that isolated -neutral America was excited about the war to a degree which reduced -British interest almost to nonchalance by comparison. - -Though I tarried in the East but forty-eight hours, I was conscious of -breathing almost exclusively pro-Ally air. President Wilson's -neutrality proclamation was being respected in letter, as far as -restraining our people from actual breaches in favor of either -belligerent group was concerned, but every minute of the day, -everywhere, it was being vociferously violated in spirit. Before the -war was a month old, Americans already were confessing freely that they -were so "neutral" that they didn't care who won as long as Germany was -"licked." They resigned themselves to the Chief Magistrate's dictum -that the country as such must be guilty of no "un-neutral" acts, but it -failed lamentably to still the natural instincts of American hearts -which were beating fervently, irresistibly, for the Allies. -Bernstorff's hour-by-hour interviews, apologies and explanations, -Münsterberg's homilies, _The Fatherland's_ vituperations, the -_New-Yorker Staatszeitung's_ editorials in English signed by Ridder and -"boiler-plated" to any newspapers which would give them space, "fair -play" appeals from obsequious ex-Berlin exchange-professors like Dean -Burgess of Columbia--all these things fell on deaf ears. None of them -could obliterate the crime of Germany, which loomed ineradicable on the -war horizon as Americans scanned it--Belgium. All the instincts of -American justice, liberty, humanity and regard for treaty obligations -rebelled against "Necessity-knows-no-law" and "scrap of paper" ethics. -We had gone to war ourselves, in 1898, to defend the rights of a small -nation. The spectacle of Military Germany trampling little Belgium under -foot, causelessly, mercilessly, was enough, had there been no other -single issue to enlist our sympathy, to vouchsafe it, whole-heartedly, -to the nations which were leagued in support of the old-fashioned -principle that Right is nobler than Might. Thus was America's mind -attuned in August, 1914, and at least in the opinion-molding area of the -country which lies between the seaboard and the line where the Middle -West begins, that mind was, with American predilection for reaching -right conclusions spontaneously, irrevocably made up. The attempts of -the Propaganda Steam-Roller to flatten out the anti-German prejudices -provoked by the rape of Belgium were frantic, but fruitless. The -pre-digested baby food which pedagogues and demagogues, ambassadors, -brewers and rabbis now began to ladle out for American consumption did -not temper those prejudices. Indeed, it was manifest that it was but -aggravating them. Our own General Brooke, attending the German army -maneuvers in Silesia eight or nine years ago, was asked by the Kaiser if -he had ever been in Germany before. "Never in this part," remarked -Brooke. "Where, then?" persisted William II. "In Cincinnati, Chicago -and Milwaukee," replied the general. I was about to enter "that part" -of Germany now. I was not there long before realizing that pro-Ally -sentiment was immeasurably less assertive, at any rate, than in the -outspokenly pro-Ally East. Chicago, of course, has more Germans than -Düsseldorf, and Cincinnati and Milwaukee, in spots, are as Teutonic as -Hamburg or Bremen, so it was natural to find _Deutschland, Deutschland -über Alles_ more than disputing supremacy with _Rule Britannia_. In -Chicago pro-Germanism was rampant and articulate. An article written by -me for the _Chicago Tribune_ in the first fortnight of September, in -which I ventured to express my opinion as to where the responsibility -for the war lay, how long it would last and who would win it, brought -down on me as violent a torrent of abuse as if it had been published in -the _Berliner Tageblatt_. For saying that, in my judgment, the German -War Party had made the war; that it would go on till Germany was beaten -to her knees, and that eventual exhaustion of the Germanic Powers and -the longer resources of the Allies would win the war for the latter, I -became forthwith the target of all the forty-two-centimeter guns in the -Windy City. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - THE HELMSMEN - - "We don't want to fight, - But, by Jingo! if we do, - We've got the men, - We've got the ships, - And we've got the money, too!" - - -When during the dark hours of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877 a London -music-hall comedian named McDermott popularized the chorus of a ditty -which has rung down the ages, he not only enriched the English language -with a new synonym for a war zealot--Jingo--but he epitomized British -faith in British invincibility and the basis on which it is founded. -McDermott's blustering ballad, the _Tipperary_ of its day, interpreted, -by a fate which seems strangely ironical in the light of current events, -Britain's determination to go to war to prevent the Bear from grabbing -Constantinople. - -The song applied precisely to conditions in this country in midsummer, -1914. Englishmen "didn't want to fight"--abroad, at least, for they -were looking forward to cooling their belligerent ardor nearer home, in -Ireland. But when the violation of Belgium resolved all dissension in -the British Government on the question of intervention in a conflict -which, up to then, concerned purely the Dual and Triple Alliances, and -literally dragged Britain into the vortex in the name of both her honor -and interest, Englishmen did want to fight. Taking quick stock of their -resources, they felt assured, in McDermott's immortal words, that they -had "got the men, the ships, and the money, too." But men, ships and -money, vital as they are, are useless without leaders, and it was -natural that Britons' first thoughts, in the dawn of the Empire's -supreme emergency, should be concerned with the personnel of the -helmsmen. A super-crisis calls insistently for super-men, and in the -midst of an era which cynics call the age of mediocrities doubts were -not few that England might find herself fatally lacking in a plight as -stupendous as any Pitt, Nelson and Wellington had ever faced. - -With their astonishing capacity to stifle domestic controversy and party -bickerings on the threshold of a foreign crisis, Englishmen decided that -the first essential was to repose implicit confidence in the existing -Government. Ireland, Labor, Suffragettes, Opposition, the four thorns -in the Asquith Administration's side, withdrew, leaving the cleavage -they once made so completely healed that hardly a scar remained. The -Liberal Cabinet, admittedly stale with nearly a decade of uninterrupted -power, might not contain all the talents of statesmanship essential for -the conduct of a struggle on whose issue hung Imperial existence. It -was a Government overweighted with "tired lawyers," consisting (with the -exception of Lord Kitchener) of exclusively professional politicians, -and even tinged in important directions (like Lord Haldane) with -confessed Germanophilism. It was a Government long and openly charged -by its foes with desiring office at any cost and placing the -perpetuation of its hold on the fleshpots before any other interest. It -was a Government which had avowedly temporized with the Irish yesterday -and the Labor Party to-day as the price of maintaining its Parliamentary -existence. It was finally a Government notoriously consisting of rival -internal factions best typified by the aristocratic Imperialism of Sir -Edward Grey on the one hand and on the other by the rugged and radical -Democracy of Mr. Lloyd-George. Yet the nation, in the presence of peril -palpably incalculable, relegated its criticisms, its doubts and its -carpings, and with one voice agreed that "Trust the Government!" must be -the slogan of the hour. The Anglo-Saxon spirit of Fair Play asserted -itself. The country said that the Asquith Administration must be given -a chance to exhibit its mettle. If it failed, there was always time for -a reckoning. The British Government of August, 1914, entered upon the -war clothed with a mandate as sweeping in its powers as formal -conferment of a Dictatorship could have been--a woof of national -confidence amounting to little short of _carte blanche_. John Bright -once said that a British Government is always annihilated by the war -which it is called upon to wage. But Englishmen wished Mr. Asquith's -Cabinet Godspeed, and by their unquestioning support of every measure it -proposed showed that their loyalty and trust were real and sincere. - -Although the British Government (by which is meant only the Premier's -Administration) consists of twenty-one ministers of Cabinet rank, the -war régime, it was manifest from the start, would be confined to five -outstanding men combining the motive forces of the entire organization. -These five were the Prime Minister himself, the Foreign Secretary (Sir -Edward Grey), the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Lloyd-George), the -First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Winston Churchill), and the Secretary -for War (Lord Kitchener). Although the highest-salaried member of the -Cabinet, the Lord High Chancellor (Lord Haldane) drew ten thousand -pounds a year, and there were half-a-dozen others like the Home -Secretary, the Colonial Secretary, the Secretary for India and the -Presidents of the Board of Trade and Local Government Board whose -financial status (five thousand pounds a year), outranked the four -thousand five hundred pounds which Mr. Churchill received, the quintette -named, by reason of their posts and personalities, was the logical inner -Government to deal with the war. That brilliant English essayist and -biographer, Mr. A. G. Gardiner, even further delimited the numerical -dimensions of the _real_ War Government when he said that "if Mr. -Asquith is the brain of the Cabinet, Sir Edward Grey is its character -and Mr. Lloyd-George is its inspiration." - -[Illustration: Herbert Henry Asquith.] - -Herbert Henry Asquith, Yorkshireman by birth and barrister by -profession, has been Prime Minister for seven years, succeeding his late -Liberal chieftain, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in 1908. Asquith, whom -Bannerman used to call "the sledge-hammer," because of his lucidity of -thought and expression, was sixty-three years old in September, 1915. -Although not a Pitt, nor even a Disraeli or Palmerston, the statesman -who looks like a Roman senator and is gifted with eloquence in keeping -was considered in many respects a Heaven-sent blessing in the -melting-pot era of British history, for as a purely steadying influence -he is probably without a peer in contemporary politics. As a politician -in the narrower sense of a party disciplinarian, manager and leader he -will rank with the craftiest names in his country's tortuous history. -British Liberalism has skated on perilous ice following the reaction -which swept the Conservative Party from power after the Boer War and -throughout the era of Democratic radicalism in which Great Britain has -meantime had its being. That Mr. Asquith's party is enabled to -celebrate ten years of sovereignty still strongly intrenched is by -general consent due to the astute generalship of its commander-in-chief. -Asquith is not commonly accused of imaginativeness. He is too typical a -British statesman for that. His temperament is devoid of the -adventurous, like that of the true intellectual, and he is -pathologically fonder of harking to public opinion than boldly leading -it. When he coined the "Wait and See" epigram during the Ulster crisis, -he gave utterance to a phrase which accurately epitomizes the -tentativeness so preponderant in his political career. British -procrastination and vacillation at vital periods of the war were -undoubtedly the reflex action of the Prime Minister's own low-speed -mental processes. Yet in the revolt of the Curragh Camp officers, that -strange curtain-raiser of the impending Ulster crisis, which threatened -to embroil these fair isles in another Cromwellian trial of strength -between Parliament and the army, Mr. Asquith, by a courageous stroke of -positive genius--his own assumption of the Secretaryship for War in -succession to the compromised Colonel Seely--resolved into tranquillity -and hope a situation more menacing to civil peace in England than living -Britons had ever before lived through. Beneath Mr. Asquith's polished -exterior, unemotional mask and sweet reasonableness Germany, mistaking -his for a peace-at-any-price nature, made one of the most egregious of -her numerous and glaring miscalculations. - -Only the results of the Peace Conference will determine the true -ramifications of Sir Edward Grey's reputation. It was deservedly high -when the war began. No Foreign Secretary in Europe approached him in -stature, with the possible exception of Delcassé. He had long been -Germany's _bête noire_, being looked upon as the incarnation of the -British diplomatic policy of blocking German ambitions for a "place in -the sun" wherever and whenever they manifested themselves. As long -before as December, 1912, Professor Hans Delbrück, the sanest of German -political professors, told me in a prophetic interview for _The Daily -Mail_ on "What Germany Wants" that unless England abandoned her policy -of "arbitrary opposition to legitimate German political aspirations; if -she had no inclination to meet us on that ground; if her interests -rather pointed to a perpetuation of the anything-to-beat-Germany policy, -so let it be. The Armageddon which must then, some day, ensue will not -be of our making." That was a fairly plain warning of coming events. -The Germans, as I have said, considered Sir Edward Grey anti-Germanism -personified. They regard him to-day as the "organizer of the war." -Taking an obviously short-sighted view, I used sometimes to think that -it would have been good politics for Britain to buy off Germany with a -_Trinkgeld_ (tip) of some sort. If Bismarck was right when he called the -Germans "a nation of house-servants," they could obviously have been -bribed. Delbrück himself once confessed to me that Germany did not -_need_ more oversea territory; she only _hankered_ for it for -window-dressing purposes. She wanted as expensive millinery and -high-powered a car as her rich neighbor across the way. Colonies were -fashionable, and she had to have them. I occasionally thought that -England would be staving off trouble for herself by bribing avaricious -Germany with a coaling-station on some inconsequential trade-route or -even shutting the eye to some burglarious descent on territory or -concessions in Asia Minor or Central Africa. But such notions left the -German character, the Oliver Twist in it, fatally out of account. The -German is the most eager person in the world to covet a mile if given an -inch. Concessions to his rapacity would have meant purchasing turmoil -for the conceding party not eliminating it. British opposition to -Pan-Germanic designs, typified by Sir Edward Grey, was based on -thoroughgoing insight into the German nature and German ambitions, -epitomized for all time by Bernhardi when he said that nothing would -appease the Fatherland except World Power or downfall. Hush-money to -Germany in the shape of periodically new "places in the sun" would have -kept her quiet for spells. But the blackmailing process would have been -resumed. It is the German way. "Mr. Balfour tells us we must not -expect Englishmen to support our aims in the direction of territorial -expansion," said Delbrück. "What remains then for us, except to enforce -the accomplishment of our purposes by strengthened armaments?" Could -avowal be plainer-spoken? - -Sir Edward Grey is fifty-three years old and has been a childless -widower since 1906. He has been a Member of Parliament continuously -since he was twenty-three years of age. Though an Oxford graduate and -successful barrister, he is in no sense a scholar, and his experience of -foreign affairs up to his becoming Foreign Secretary in the -Campbell-Bannerman ministry in 1905 was confined to an -under-secretaryship of the Foreign Office in the preceding (Rosebery) -Government. Grey, who is also of the smooth-shaven Romanesque type of -statesman in external appearance, is an amazing example of natural -British aptitude for the higher politics, for he is not a linguist (he -speaks nothing but English) and except for a visit to France with the -present King a couple of years ago was said never to have been abroad in -his life. His hobbies are tennis, fly-fishing and birds. The only book -he ever wrote was a treatise on the piscatory art and he tramped through -the New Forest with Colonel Roosevelt talking ornithology all the way. -Yet a man has only to read the British White Paper--he need not, indeed, -do much except read Sir Edward Grey's dispatches to his ambassadors on -July 29, 1914--to realize that the Foreign Secretary is a statesman of -marvelous force and capacity to grapple with the essentials of a -situation. No state papers of modern times outrival Grey's diplomatic -correspondence on the eve of the war. They ought to insure him, as I -believe they will, immortality, no matter how the war ends. Sir Edward -Grey's speeches are like his dispatches--devoid of irrelevancy or -rhetorical claptrap and incisive in the highest degree. They ring -conviction and sincerity and their argument is usually unanswerable. -Doctor von Bethmann Hollweg's clumsy attempts to parry Grey's mid-bellum -dialectics have only brought out the latter in bolder relief. The war -has notoriously eaten into Grey's soul. Germany calls it guilty -remorse. Men who know are conscious that he labored for peace to the -last minute with unflagging enthusiasm. His industry during the war has -been intense, and his insistence upon looking at things for himself has -threatened more than once to cost him his eyesight. As it is, -intermittent relaxation has to be forced upon him by his colleagues and -his medical advisers. Sir Edward Grey's permanent disappearance from -Downing Street would rejoice Germany like a victorious battle. Grey has -been violently blamed for the failure of Britain's mid-war diplomacy, -especially in the Balkans. His own defense against charges of failure -in that region is likely to seem plausible in the light of history, -viz., that, unaccompanied by commensurate military successes, the -efforts of Allied diplomacy in the Near East were almost hopelessly -handicapped. - -One night during the South African War a Radical M.P., advocating the -downtrodden brother Boer's cause at a mass-meeting in Birmingham, -received such a warm reception from the crowd that he had to flee for -his life through a back-door, disguised as a policeman. His name was -David Lloyd-George, whose present occupation is that of England's man of -the hour. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer when war broke out and -introduced the initial war budgets, earning thereby encomiums from the -financial community which for years before looked upon him as capital's -demagogic arch-foe. To-day, Minister of Munitions--the circumstances -under which he became such are treated in a subsequent -chapter--Lloyd-George comes far nearer being Britain's national hero -than any of his contemporaries. He is charged by his detractors with -the design to make himself Dictator. England could have a worse one. - -If Lloyd-George were an American instead of a Welshman, he would have -been President of the United States by this time, or at least as close -to it as Bryan has ever been. There is in fact very little typically -British about him. He is emotional, for example, and he has an -imagination. His whole make-up is trans-atlantic, which is _Anglice_ -for sensational. Picture, if you can, a strong solution of Booker -Washington (I mean, of course, only his eloquence), of flamboyant and -appealing Billy Sunday, of the Boy Orator of the Platte at his -silver-tongued best, and of our inimitable T. R. in his most rampageous -form, and you will have Lloyd-George in composite. It was because he is -all this that he was chosen for the "shells portfolio" in the -reconstructed Asquith cabinet. - -[Illustration: Lloyd-George.] - -He knew very little--probably nothing--about munitions seven months ago. -It could not have been very much before that when he probably thought -that guncotton was raw material for pajamas. But he is the prize -"enthuser" of the Kingdom, a master of the tedious art of welding drowsy -Britons into a race of real war-makers. All the ingredients for -supplying the army with the shells it needed were in existence; but they -needed organization. The manufacturers and their works needed -organization. The workmen needed organization. The public spirit -needed organization; and the whole business needed a Lloyd-George. It -got him ten months after it ought to have had him, but not too late. -Obviously the diminutive Welsh country lawyer who had brought about the -disestablishment of the State Church of Wales, imposed State Insurance -and Old Age Pensions on a reluctant Kingdom, assailed the vested -interests of the House of Lords and demolished them, was the man to -impress the country with the true meaning of the shells tragedy. He -took the stump, his natural element, for the purpose. He went to the -people, especially in the great industrial centers, and told them the -truth. He burned into their conscience--that was the only way to get -the stolid British to wake up to a real peril--that shells, shells, and -then shells, and nothing but shells, were required if Britain meant to -win the war. - -The people listened to Lloyd-George. He has a way of making them listen -to him. They gave him their ear even in his pro-Boer days. They -listened to him when he (an ardent Baptist) cleared for action against -the Welsh Church. They listened to him even when he went down to -Limehouse and coined a new word, "to limehouse," meaning violent -political spell-binding, second cousin to demagogism, by the nature of -his impassioned appeals to the people to rise and slay the Lords. It -was inevitable that the country would listen to him in his newest and -greatest rôle as organizer of victory. - -Lloyd-George's goal is undoubtedly the Premiership--the ambition of -every British politician. He has plenty of time to wait--he is only -fifty-two--and unfailing week-end golf keeps him as "fit" as a man -fifteen years his junior. Of Napoleonic stockiness of build, with a -wealth of wavy gray hair worn long, he is a figure which radiates -strength and power, though unimpressive of itself. He is a capital -"mixer." It is, indeed, his principal political asset. He is as much -at home laboring with a gang of recalcitrant miners at the pit-mouth--he -always goes straight to headquarters when he essays to settle a -strike--as he is on the floor of the House of Commons or as moderator at -a Baptist convention. He likes Americans and specializes in extending -hospitality to interesting ones. Unquestionably he has a strong hold on -our imaginations, as a man of his temperament, career and talent is -bound to have. An eminent Chicagoan visited London last summer, with -introductions which would have easily paved his way to the throne or any -other exalted British quarter. "Whom would you like to meet most of -all?" he was asked. "Lloyd-George," he said, with the intuitive sense -of a Yankee who only has time for the things worth while. - -Winston Churchill, the son of an English father and an American mother, -is the Peck's Bad Boy of the British Government. His popularity has -been sadly dimmed since the war began, for he was looked upon as not -only the author of the grotesque naval "relief" expedition to -Antwerp--now either prisoners of war in Germany or interned in -Holland--but the culprit who was chiefly responsible for the far more -disastrous Dardanelles adventure. Another crime is charged against him, -hardly less serious than the two just named: his imperious -administration of the Admiralty drove from the First Sea Lordship the -man universally considered Britain's greatest sailor, Lord Fisher. All -agree, friend and foe, that to "Winston" was due in a very marked -degree, England's superb readiness at sea when war broke out, but it is -a matter of grave doubt whether even that superlative service to the -country will be looked upon as great enough to blanket his subsequent -and costly incompetencies. When the upheaval in the Asquith Cabinet came -about, in the spring of 1915, Churchill was nominally squelched by -interment in the harmless berth of the Chancellor of the Duchy of -Lancaster, most of whose official time is spent in licensing Justices of -the Peace and Notaries Public. That ennui hung heavily on his hands was -manifested by the announcement during the summer that Churchill had -taken up painting as a pastime. - -I have said that "Winston" was nominally subjugated, for a petrel of his -peculiarly irrepressible storminess can only be wholly curbed by -annihilation. Asquith is far too sagacious a politician to risk -Churchill's complete eclipse in the Government of which he has always -been the most picturesque constituent. Churchill, too, aspires to the -Premier's toga, though a good many people fear that the defects of his -qualities will keep him, just as they kept his distinguished father, -Lord Randolph Churchill, from No. 10 Downing Street. But "Winston" is -far less dangerous to the Government as a friend than as a foe. His -chameleon political career justifies the fear that he would turn on his -old associates and party cronies the moment he conceived that advantage -to self was thereby obtainable. Obviously such a man is better in the -Cabinet than out of it, especially if he is of Winston Churchill's -undoubted personal charm, magnetism and resistless force. - -Combining the best qualities of his dual ancestry, he makes a lively -appeal to the average heart. Aristocratic to the core, with the blood of -the Marlboroughs in his veins, and a snob of snobs in his personal -relations, it is an anomalous fact that Churchill is an endlessly -popular figure with the crowd. Whether it is his youth--he is only -forty-one, was a soldier of no mean renown at twenty-three, a Member of -Parliament at twenty-six, a Cabinet Minister at thirty-two and a force -in Imperial politics long before he was forty--or his impetuous -devil-may-care make-up, or his bombastic platform style, the masses like -him. He has only one serious rival, indeed, in their affections, and -that is Lloyd-George. He is remembered in war thus far not only for his -Antwerp and Dardanelles indiscretions, but for his equally unhappy -oratorical excesses, which are doomed, apparently, always to precede -some untoward naval or military event. Within thirty-six hours of -proclaiming at Liverpool (in September, 1914) that "if the German navy -does not come out and fight, we shall dig it out like rats from a hole," -_U9_ sent the _Cressy, Hague_ and _Aboukir_ to the bottom. In the -spring of 1915, discussing the Dardanelles, Churchill blustered that "we -are within a very few miles of the greatest victory this war has seen," -and a few weeks later Kitchener announced that twelve miles of -precarious front in Gallipoli were all there was to show for a campaign -which had already cost eighty-seven thousand casualties. When Churchill -prognosticates nowadays, the country trembles for what the next day will -bring forth. Yet he is a rash prophet who would predict that "Winston" -has run his course in British politics. He took manfully the -discomfiture of the Coalition reshuffle, and although his picture is no -longer cheered when it is flashed on the cinematograph screen the -shrewdest seers are certain that he will "come back."[1] - - -[1] Churchill resigned from the Cabinet in November, 1915, declaring -that he was a soldier--"and my regiment is in France." To it he said he -preferred to go rather than continue in a position of "well-paid -inactivity" at home. In a dramatic speech in the House of Commons, he -took political farewell of the country and, having pleaded "Not Guilty" -to the capital charges of responsibility for Antwerp and the -Dardanelles, left England unostentatiously for the trenches, as a major -of cavalry. - - -Lord Kitchener has always boasted that he scorned popularity. He has -need for his philosophical temperament to-day, for there is no manner of -doubt that his hold on the imaginations of his countrymen is less firm -than it was when the war began. "K.'s" dramatic appointment to the War -Office, in the earliest hours of the conflict, heartened the nation to -an extraordinary degree. Britain had no army, Englishmen said, but it -had Kitchener, who was a host in himself. His name alone was an asset -which bred indescribable confidence. Men recalled his dominant -traits--iron determination, strenuous application to duty, imperious -disregard of hide-bound methods and red tape, and, above all, his genius -for organization. They rejoiced to hear that he had accepted the War -Office, long cob-webbed with circumlocutory traditions and petticoat -influence, on the strict understanding that he was to be monarch of all -he surveyed--that he would not tolerate such party interference as -intrudes itself on departmental affairs in general. Immensely to the -popular taste, because it confirmed the masses' conception of "K.," was -the story that when he arrived at the War Office for the first time and -was told there was "no bed here, Sir," he commanded the affrighted and -astonished caretaker, then, "to put one in, as I am going to sleep -here." Britain said to herself that she indubitably possessed a match -for German Efficiency in her new Secretary for War, and all thought of -"losing" with such a man as the supreme chief of the military -establishment vanished from her mind. - -[Illustration: Kitchener.] - -Kitchener was never one of the war-will-be-over-by-Christmas crew. His -maiden speech as War Minister in the House of Lords informed the -country, bluntly, that he expected a three years' struggle. During the -winter an anecdote ascribed to the taciturn War Secretary's loquacious -sister gained currency, and passed from mouth to mouth. "When is the -war going to end?" she asked him. "I don't know when it's going to -end," he was said to have replied, "but it is going to begin in May." -It was in May, by the pitiless irony of Fate, that the War Office's -muddle of the ammunition supply was exposed. - -Like all else in Britain--men, measures and institutions--the -arbitrament of time will be required to pass final judgment on -Kitchener's part in the war. In the principal field he was called upon -to plow--the raising of a huge army from out of the earth--he -accomplished marvels. No nation within fourteen months evolved from -practically nothing an organization of, roundly, three million soldiers. -It is not enough, for the actual requirements of the war call -insistently for more and more, yet "K.'s" recruiting achievement stands -forth without parallel in military history. It is certainly without -precedent of even approximate magnitude in the annals of a non-conscript -democracy. Lord Kitchener's accomplishments in other directions have -notoriously not kept pace with his successes as a recruiting-sergeant. -The shells affair can hardly fail to dim his reputation. The -deficiencies of the voluntary system can not be called a failure -directly chargeable to him, in that it has not brought forward men in -quantity commensurate with the developed necessities of the campaign. -Kitchener has hinted, but only that, that he is prepared to resort to -Conscription the moment he is convinced that Voluntaryism has collapsed. -But it does not seem unlikely that history may condemn him for clinging -to the voluntary principle too long and hesitating to make Englishmen do -their duty, instead of relying endlessly on their casual inclination to -perform it. Kitchener has ruled the British War Office practically as an -autocrat. He brooked no interference, even from the Cabinet. Viewed -from that standpoint, "K." can hardly be absolved from cardinal -responsibility for British military failures. Before the end of 1915 -General Sir Ian Hamilton had disappeared from Gallipoli, Sir John French -returned from France, General Townshend retreated from Baghdad, and the -Allied "Relief" Expedition to Serbia had retired to Salonica, whence it -had set out less than ten weeks previous. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - THE GENERAL, THE ADMIRAL AND THE KING - - -That Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in France -and Flanders, an army which reduces to comparative insignificance the -largest host ever marshaled by Napoleon, comes from fighting stock is -plain enough from the fact that his only sister, Mrs. Despard, is a -militant suffragette. She herself provides homely evidence that the -appointment of her brother (whom she practically "brought up") to lead -the British fight against the Germans on land realized a boyhood -aspiration. "When we were children," Mrs. Despard relates, "the great -province of Schleswig-Holstein was taken from Denmark by what was then -Prussia. We were discussing the disgraceful incident of poor little -Denmark losing the province, and a certain little boy, then ten or -twelve years of age, strutted about and said: 'If I was only a man, I -know what I'd do to them.' He was very indignant. That little boy is -now commander of Britain's great army." - -It has been said that South Africa is the grave of British military -reputations. Sir Redvers Buller's was buried there, and though those of -Roberts and Kitchener emerged from the Boer War, the renown of Botha and -Dewet admittedly outshone them. One British General at least was "made" -by the three years' conflict with the Dutch Republics--Sir John French, -the cavalryman who relieved Kimberley, and whose escutcheon during the -sorry South African campaign was alone untarnished by blunder or -reverse. As Kitchener was the logical choice for organizer of Britain's -new armies, Sir John French was the natural selection for their -field-commandership. French, following in paternal footsteps, began his -fighting career in the navy, but he has been a soldier for the past -forty-one years--he was sixty-three in September, 1915. A man whose -entire manhood has been lived in the army, who knows it through and -through, loves it passionately, has devoted himself to it with the zeal -of a student, and fought in all its campaigns for nearly half a century, -had an ideal claim upon its supreme honor in the hour of superlative -crisis. Doubtless in the Government's mind when it entrusted "Jack" -French with the command of the British Expeditionary Force was the -reputation he had won in South Africa as a fighting field-general. -Unquestionably the broad sweeping movements his cavalry divisions -executed at Elandslaagte, Lombard's Kop, Bloemfontein, Pretoria and -Barberton were operations which contributed, perhaps, more than any -other scheme of the brilliantly mismanaged Boer campaign finally to -bring it to a victorious end. Neither the British nor the German -General Staff realized in August, 1914, that Armageddon was going to -develop into a trench or "positional" war, with little or no latitude -for those grandiose tactical maneuvers which delighted the heart of -Moltke and made a Sedan the ambition of every modern tactician. Yet Sir -John French, whose military virtues include adaptability, if not -imaginativeness, which is oftener born, than acquired, turned out to be -ideally fitted for "spade warfare," in which the qualities of endurance, -steadfastness and patience have displaced the more spectacular talents -of daring and recklessness and those bold strokes of magnificent -vastness known as Napoleonic. Bonaparte's scintillating genius, his -predilection for the stupendous, would probably have counted for little -amid such immobile conditions as the Allied armies have had to face in -the West, just as the Germans' prized Moltke traditions in the same -region have come to naught. - -[Illustration: Sir John French.] - -Military history will unquestionably accord the retreat of the British -army from Mons a place among the finest achievements of all times. It -was due to Sir John French's strategy that Berlin was cheated of that -fiendishly coveted orgy of gloating over the "annihilation" of what the -Kaiser is said to have called "the contemptible little British army." -Since Mons and the Marne the British Field-Marshal's task has been to -"hold" the enemy and to inspire his men to fulfil, unflinchingly, that -prodigious, but comparatively inglorious, task. In the circumstances it -was fortunate that a man of Sir John French's temperament was in charge. -He knew how to "sit tight." Kinship with his soldiers has been his -lifetime specialty. He is fond of sharing their joys and sorrows not in -any stereotyped, dress-parade sense, but actually. He likes to move -among them, and does so. His jaunty fighting bearing and unfailing good -humor are a constant inspiration. Short and stocky, straight and -energetic of movement, he looks every inch a soldier, and he has a -soldier's habit of saying what he means, direct from the shoulder, -whether it is a corporal, a staff officer, a brigadier or a Cabinet -Minister to whom he is addressing himself. - -The Allied military arrangement conferred supreme authority on General -Joffre, but the British Field Marshal's character and career were -considered a joint guarantee that Sir John French would not be found -lacking when called upon to do and dare greatly on his own account. It -would be going too far to say that the war has covered French with -glory. He would be the first to banish such a thought. Though Britons -have fallen laurel-crowned on a score of fields in France and Flanders -and irrigated the cock-pit which lies between the Alps and the Channel -with as heroic blood as was ever spilled, the British offensives in the -West have been little more than brilliant failures. Neuve Chapelle is -an undying story of Anglo-Saxon gallantry, as was Ypres before it; but -it was nothing else. The "big push" which England hoped had at last -begun with the fighting in Artois and the Champagne at the end of -September, 1915, turned out to be a victory of distressingly short life -and little real effectiveness. Yet when Germany lost the war--when she -failed to take Paris--the British army under Sir John French wrote -history of which Englishmen will never be ashamed. Who it was that most -effectually parried von Kluck and the Crown Prince's thrust at the -French capital will probably, among generations of schoolboys yet -unborn, be as fruitful a theme of argument as is the question who won -Waterloo--Wellington or Blücher--but whatever the verdict of posterity -the smashing of the Germans on the Marne reeked glory for all concerned, -and Britain's share of it is a heritage which will survive with -Blenheim, Balaclava, Kandahar and Khartoum.[1] - - -[1] Sir John French returned to England in December, 1915, relinquishing -(at his own request, it was officially stated) the -commandership-in-chief in France for the command of the Home Defense -forces. King George conferred the dignity of a Viscountcy on the -Field-Marshal. - - -Another Sir John--Admiral Jellicoe--is commander-in-chief of the British -navy. Events still to come must determine whether Anglo-Saxon history -is to be enriched with another Nelson. But as far as human prescience -could foretell, "Jack" Jellicoe was of all men in the British Fleet -preordained by talent, temperament and training to be the admiral in -whose keeping could safely be entrusted British destinies more priceless -than those which were safeguarded at Trafalgar. - -Jellicoe was one of the godfathers of the dreadnought, having been -summoned by Lord Fisher, the real author of that revolution in naval -science, to support and carry into execution the all-big-gun ship idea. -Fisher had years before associated young Captain Jellicoe with him as -assistant director of naval ordnance, whereupon there ensued an intimacy -which friends say will link their names together much as history -associated St. Vincent and Nelson as the twin victors of Trafalgar--the -one, the far-sighted planner of preparatory reforms; the other, the -faithful executor of their purpose. - -Jellicoe resembles Sir John French in more than given name. Like him, -he is of quite markedly small stature. Neither the Generalissimo or -Admiralissimo of Britain in the Great War at all corresponds, -physically, to the popular notion that the English are "big" men. Like -French, again, Jellicoe is mild and gentle, a pair of conspicuously -tight lips indicating poise, reserve force and self-confidence. The -chieftain of the Grand Fleet--that is its official title and not an -effusive expletive--did not make his first acquaintance with danger -afloat when von Tirpitz' submarines began to make life a burden for -British sailors. He has been snatched from the jaws of death on three -separate occasions. In 1893 Jellicoe was commander of Sir George -Tryon's _Victoria_, when it was sent to its doom in the Mediterranean, -and, although "below" in the ship-hospital with fever at the moment of -the disaster, was miraculously rescued by a midshipman when he came to -the surface more dead than alive after the vessel foundered. Seven -years previous, as if Fate was keeping a protecting hand over him for -some great hour, Jellicoe had an equally marvelous escape from drowning -when a gig he was commanding off Gibraltar capsized and he was washed -ashore. In the Boxer war of 1900, Jellicoe was flag captain to Admiral -Seymour, the commander of the Allied expedition which marched from -Tien-tsin to the relief of the Powers' legations in Pekin, and at the -battle of Peitsang Jellicoe was struck by a Chinese bullet, incurring -wounds which the flagship-surgeon considered fatal. Again Jellicoe was -spared. A brother-officer tells a story of Jellicoe's agony on that -occasion, which illuminates his capacity for facing the music, however -doleful. He had asked how the advance to Pekin was proceeding. Told -that everything was going satisfactorily, Jellicoe flashed back: "Tell -me the truth, damn it. Don't lie!" - -The triumvirate which has accomplished that amazing, silent victory of -the British Fleet in the war--the complete conquest of sea power without -anything savoring of a decisive action in the open--consists of Lord -Fisher, the creator of the dreadnought; Admiral Sir Percy Scott, the -inventor of the central "fire control" system, and Sir John Jellicoe, to -whose gunnery science and innovations in that all-important branch of -naval warfare are ascribed, in large measure, the acknowledged -preeminence of the British Fleet as a striking force. He had not been -director of ordnance a year when the percentage of the navy's hits out -of rounds fired increased from forty-two to more than seventy. "In -other words," as a critic describes it, "Jellicoe enhanced by more than -a third the fighting value of the British Fleet, and that without a keel -being added to its composition." - -Jellicoe, who is fifty-six years old, has nothing but sailor blood in -his veins. His father was a captain in the Fleet before him, and one of -his kinsmen, Admiral Philip Patton, was Second Sea Lord in Nelson's -time. Jellicoe is the incarnation of the spirit, traditions, practises -and brain-force of the British navy of to-day. He has the not -inconsiderable advantage of having had opportunity personally to take -the measure of his German antagonists, for he has visited their country, -where he made the acquaintance of von Tirpitz, Ingenohl, Pohl, Behncke, -Holtzendorff, Prince Henry and all the other naval men of the -Fatherland, and was even privileged to cruise over Berlin in a Zeppelin. - -England has heard little and seen nothing of Jellicoe during the war. -The veil of mystery which envelops the Grand Fleet is seldom lifted. -Not one Englishman in a million knows where the Fleet is, though all -know that it is where it ought to be. A ten days' visit paid to the -officers and men of the Armada by the Archbishop of York in the late -summer of 1915 resulted in imparting to the nation the first glimmer of -their life, of their indomitable watch and wait, which had been -forthcoming. - - -"It is difficult for our sailormen," wrote the Archbishop, "to realize -the value of their long-drawn vigil. Their one longing is to meet the -German ships and sink them; and yet month after month the German ships -decline the challenge. The men have little time or chance or perhaps -inclination to read accounts in serious journals of the invaluable -service which the Navy is fulfilling by simply keeping its watch; and -naval officers do not make speeches to their men. I think, indeed I -know, that it was a real encouragement to them to hear a voice from the -land of their homes telling them of the debt their country owes them for -the command of the seas--the safety of the ships carrying food and means -of work to the people, supplies of men and munitions to the fields of -battle--which is secured to us by the patient watching of the Fleet." - -Speaking of Admiral Jellicoe, the Archbishop said: - -"It was refreshing and exhilarating beyond words to find oneself in a -world governed by a great tradition so strong that it has become an -instinct of unity and mutual trust. But to the influence of this great -tradition must be added the influence of a great personality. I can not -refrain from saying here that I left the Grand Fleet sharing to the full -the admiration, affection, and confidence which every officer and man -within it feels for its Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Jellicoe. He -reassuredly is the right man in the right place at the right time. His -officers give him the most absolute trust and loyalty. When I spoke of -him to his men I always felt that quick response which to a speaker is -the sure sign that he has reached and touched the hearts of his hearers. -The Commander-in-Chief--quiet, modest, courteous, alert, resolute, -holding in firm control every part of his great fighting engine--has -under his command not only the ships but the heart of his Fleet. He -embodies and strengthens that comradeship of single-minded service which -is the crowning honor of the Navy." - - -More than once the criticism has been uttered in England itself that the -Fleet has been conspicuously lacking in the "Nelson touch." Even -Americans, friendly observers, have ventured to suggest that there -seemed to be an absence of the Farragut or Dewey "to-hell-with-mines" -spirit. Up to the end of the first year of war, Britons faced the fact -that their "supreme navy" had lost seven battleships aggregating 97,600 -tons (not counting a super-dreadnought reported by the foreign press to -have been lost in the early months of the war, but which was a loss -never "officially confirmed" in England), and ten cruisers aggregating -81,365 tons. Submarines, in that nerve-racking and troublous day before -Scott and Jellicoe solved the problem of sinking "U boats" almost faster -than German dockyards could launch substitutes, accomplished terrific -havoc among the British merchant fleet, even though the sea commerce of -these islands was never remotely in danger of being "paralyzed," as von -Tirpitz and the minions of Frightfulness fondly planned. - -[Illustration: Sir J. R. Jellicoe.] - -Yet all this while, the British Fleet was tightening its grip upon the -command of the sea to an extent which may now be described as absolute. -The German flag, war ensign and merchant pennant, has been swept from -the oceans as if it had never flown. Hamburg and Bremen, the -Fatherland's prides, are as completely demolished, as far as their -usefulness to Germany for war is concerned, as if they had been battered -into smoking ruins. German mercantile trade simply no longer exists, -except such of it as can be smuggled in tramps and ferries across the -narrow reach of the Baltic between Pomerania and the Scandinavian ports. -The Germanic Allies can import and export nothing oversea except by the -grace of Jellicoe. Their deported propaganda chieftains or compromised -ambassadors and attachés can not return to their homes in Europe from -the United States without gracious "safe conduct" by the British Fleet. -The toymakers of Nuremberg can not deliver a solitary tin soldier to an -American Christmas tree unless Jellicoe says yes. Two score proud -German liners, including the queen of them all, the _Vaterland_, are -rotting and rusting in United States harbors, ingloriously imprisoned by -British naval power. In a dozen other ports throughout the world -Hamburg and Bremen vessels tug at anchor--greyhounds enchained. Germany -is banned from the oceans like an outlaw. Her people can eat and drink -only on the ration basis. The British Fleet has done something else of -which, it seemed to me, an American Presidential message might -legitimately have made mention. It has enabled the people of the United -States for many months to traverse the oceans in security. - -These are the immediate effects of British sea supremacy on the enemy, -but even they are incommensurate with the advantages which accrue to -Britain herself. A navy has three cardinal functions: to preserve its -own shores from invasion; to maintain inviolate its country's oversea -communications, including cables, food supply, passenger traffic and -postal transportation; and, finally, to destroy the sea forces of the -enemy. The first two of these functions have been fulfilled by the -Grand Fleet, and at a cost in men and material, though not -inconsiderable, which is infinitesimal, measured by the results -attained. To absolve the third, and, of course, climacteric, function, -Jellicoe and his men and his ironclads stand ready when the opportunity -is given them--readier, by far, than when the war began. They have not -lost a really vital fighting unit (supposing unconfirmed reports to the -contrary to be unfounded). They have had a priceless experience of sea -warfare under almost every conceivable condition. They are veterans of -every essential contingency. There is hardly a terror, military or -atmospheric, which they have not faced and surmounted. They have added -to their battle efficiency by a great many new and powerful ships. -Their _morale_ is unbroken. - -When the Kaiser's Canal Armada finally makes up its mind, as I believe -that German public opinion will some day compel it to, to forsake the -snug harbors of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven and the screen of Heligoland for -the high sea, it will find that Jellicoe has up his iron sleeve a -welcome, as to the issue of which no one in these islands is capable of -cherishing the remotest doubt. History is barren of an instance of a -Power defeated in war, who retained command of the sea. Were there no -other considerations which spell the eventual, though probably not the -early, frustration of Germany's ambition to master Europe and, as -William II once sighed, to snatch the trident from Britannia's grasp, -the vise-like grip of naval power which Jellicoe has wrested alone -denotes that Armageddon can have but one ending, however long it be -deferred. - -In this cursory review of the men at Britain's helm, the Sovereign is -deliberately put at the end instead of the beginning. I mean to cast no -impious slur upon George V in thus classifying his relative importance -in the scheme of British war life, yet to rank him at the front of the -captains of the State would be hyperbole as unpardonable in a chronicler -as gratuitous defamation would be. - -To discuss the figure cut by England's King during the past year is a -task which a foreigner approaches with diffidence. I should not dream -of taking such liberties with their Britannic Majesties, for example, as -my gifted friend and colleague, Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, who recently -diagnosed the Royal situation in England thus: "I have seen the King and -Queen, and I know now why they call him George the Fifth; Mary's the -other four-fifths." Whether this subtle tribute to the undoubtedly -potent influence of the gracious Queen explains it or not, the -indisputable fact remains that the part played by King George in the day -of supreme British national trial has been a keen disappointment to a -great many of his subjects. It is not a topic which they discuss at all -in public, nor one upon which it is easy to extract their views even in -private. But when an inquiring alien even of unmistakably sympathetic -sentiment accomplishes the miracle of inducing a Briton to pour out his -heart, he will secure evidence corroborative of an impression the -foreigner has had from the start, if he has lived in England since -August, 1914--that the monarchy, as such, has not given a wholly -satisfactory account of itself. Men who are so utterly un-English as to -be "quite" frank even suggest that King George's insistence not only -upon enacting the "constitutional monarch," but _overplaying_ that rôle, -has not inconsiderably undermined the solidity of the Royal principle in -numerous British hearts. They will tell you, if in communicative mood, -that George has failed to rise to the majestic opportunities of the -moment. They contrast his incorrigibly "constitutional" behavior with -what they feel assured is the red-blooded lead King Edward would have -given. They assert that the hour of Imperial peril, when national -existence itself is at stake, has caused so many cherished shibboleths -to go by the board, that the strait-jacket of "constitutional monarchy," -which is another name for Irresponsibility, ought to go with them. In -times of peace, say Englishmen, a conscientious figurehead on the throne -is good enough. In times of war, they want a King. He need not be the -blatant, ubiquitous limelight-chaser that the Kaiser is, but some of -that royal dynamo's attributes, diluted with English seasoning, would -not have been unwelcome to his people during the past year and a half. -Britons, though, I repeat, they do not cry it out for the multitude to -hear, are not edified by the spectacle of a sovereign who has sojourned -with his army and fleet only in the most formal manner, whose war-time -activities are confined to peripatetic visits to hospitals and -convalescent homes, to inspections and reviews, and to distribution of -Victoria Crosses and Distinguished Service medals at Buckingham Palace. - -"The King," to whom Englishmen, before 10 P.M., still drink in -reverential sincerity, and who rise in devout respect when they hear the -anthem which beseeches Divine salvation for him, is an institution from -which Britain felt it had a right to expect both lead and deed in a -great war. She did not demand, or at least no conspicuous section of -her has, that the King should take the field or the sea, and prance -about in the saddle or on the quarter-deck, but they did hope, I think, -for something more inspiring than nebulous constitutionalism. It was -many months after thousands of other British mothers had sent their sons -to death and glory that Queen Mary consented to the dispatch of the -twenty-one-year-old Prince of Wales to the trenches. And Prince Albert, -who is twenty, and was in the navy before the war, was never, as far as -the public is informed, able to gratify his desire to return to active -service afloat, but must cool his martial ardor in the inglorious -capacity of an Admiralty messenger in London. Britons look across to -Germany, Russia and Italy, even to Belgium and Serbia, and, contrasting -the spectacle with "constitutionalism" in their own Royal household, -acknowledge that theirs is not a thrilling picture. - -If you attempt to penetrate into what may strike you as a mystery, you -will be told that the cause as far as King George is concerned, is -twofold: first, his high-minded, even slavish, devotion to his -conception of his constitutional limitations, and, secondly, his equally -incorrigible shyness. Sarah Bernhardt, when King George and Queen Mary -were in Paris a couple of years ago, was once summoned to the royal box -of the Comédie Franchise for presentation to the British sovereigns. -She explained to friends afterward that the King's modesty positively -unnerved her. He was as bashful as a schoolgirl. I have been told that -his manner in the presence even of his Ministers is almost deferential. -He does not know the meaning of "mixing," an art in which his late -father excelled. "The King and Queen are fond of lunching alone, and -usually take their tea together," I read the other day in a -"well-informed" society paper. Edward VII was fond of lunching with men -of affairs. He did not heed the hoots of the aristocratic set, which was -scandalized by his intimacy with tea-merchants and money kings, because -through them he was accustomed to keep in touch with the human currents -of his people's life and times. Edward would hardly have allowed even -the Empire's greatest soldier (Englishmen explain) to call the new army -"Kitchener's Army." It would have been called the "King's Army" and the -King would have thrown his incalculably great moral influence into the -breach in some more practical way than lending his photograph for -recruiting advertisements. George V could have been England's finest -recruiting sergeant. He preferred to remain a constitutional monarch. - -[Illustration: King George V.] - -Englishmen excuse, rather than blame, the King. They point out, in his -extenuation, that George's is a gentle, self-effacing nature little -fitted for the soul-stirring era in the midst of which Fate decreed that -his reign should fall. They cast no aspersions on his rugged patriotism -or even on his kingly zeal. They believe that, according to his lights, -he exercises faithfully what he considers to be his prerogatives. They -feel, they tell you, that it is not his fault that he remains the only -man in the Kingdom who still wears a Prince Albert coat. His is, -somehow, not the magnetic influence which, if it were that of Edward -VII, would still be condemning Englishmen to cling to that ancient robe. -They explain that it is his psychic misfortune, rather than a failing, -that nobody thinks it worth while to emulate him by taking the pledge -"for the duration of the war" and drinking barley-water. Edward VII's -abstemious decree would have blotted the liquor trade out of existence, -because in the lap of his example sat militant loyalty. The "old -King's" wish was law. - -Perhaps--I do not know--George V is wiser than men think. Perhaps he is -not being kept in cotton-wool by his Victorian private secretary. -Perhaps he is not yielding as supinely as many people imagine to the -inflexible mandates of constitutionalism. Perhaps he has his ear closer -to the ground than his contemporaries realize, and with it hears the -far-off but unmistakable rumbles of the limitlessly democratized Britain -which is already emerging from the crucible of war. Perhaps injustice -is done to him by those who accuse him of not rising more vigorously to -the opportunities of his Empire's hour of destiny. May he not be -fitting himself still to sit the throne in that coming day when Britain -will perhaps want even a more constitutional ruler than ermine and the -crown now rest upon? - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - YOUR KING AND COUNTRY WANT YOU - - -"Luna Park," in Berlin, once had an English manager and an American -"publicity agent." In pursuit of his lime-light duties the -transatlantic hustler, who had been engaged because he was such, -reported to the manager one day that he had accomplished a feat on which -he had been plodding for weeks. The owners of a building which -commanded the most prominent view in Berlin had finally consented to let -"Luna Park" affix a gigantic electric flash-light sign to the roof. - -"It will be the greatest thing of the kind ever seen in Germany," -exclaimed the enthusiast from the U.S.A. "They'll allow us to have -'Luna Park' in letters twenty feet high across a -one-hundred-and-fifty-foot front, and you'll be able to see 'em a mile -away!" - -He expected his British superior fairly to jump for joy. But this is -what he said: - -"Quite so. But don't you think that will be a bit conspicuous?" - -When I returned to London on September 24, after four short, strenuous -weeks in the United States, I found Englishmen dominated seemingly by a -genuine fear that the war might become "a bit conspicuous." It was true -that stupendous things had happened in the interval. Namur, "the -impregnable," had melted before the merciless German 42's like the other -Belgian fortresses. Brussels was in the enemy's hands, unscotched, -thanks to the intervention of the American Minister, Brand Whitlock, and -through it were passing apparently endless streams of gray-clad Germans -bound for Antwerp and the sea. France had been overrun, regardless of -the cost in Teuton blood, Lille and the industrial provinces were -securely held, and, although the Crown Prince and von Kluck had been -gloriously repulsed in their frenzied dash on Paris, the capital had all -but resounded to the clatter of Uhlan hoofs, and Bordeaux was still -regarded a far safer seat of Government. England herself had lived -through hours of anxious crisis blacker than any within the memory of -the living generation. At Mons, as official reports disclosed, the -gallant little British army narrowly escaped annihilation. As it was, -it lost hideously in killed and wounded. Gaping holes had been ripped -in the ranks of famous regiments, and the Expeditionary Force, within -six weeks of its landing, was already sadly mangled. Sir John French -stirred the nation with his dispatch on the retreat from Mons and told -how his army, though hurriedly concentrated by rail only two days -before, had tenaciously withstood, in the dogged British way, the -combined attack of five crack German corps. In the subsequent fighting -which beat the Germans on the Marne and saved Paris, British soldiers, -battered and battle-scarred as they were, had done even more than their -share. Two days before arrival in Liverpool the _Campania_ wireless--I -returned to England in the same veteran hulk which had taken me to -America in August--brought the dread tidings of the submarining of -cruisers _Aboukir, Cressy_ and _Hogue_ in the Channel by the _U9_ and -_Weddigen_, with cruelly heavy sacrifice of British lives. - -All these things had happened, and yet London was unshaken. She had -been "a bit uneasy," my English friends conceded, in the days and nights -when the fate of Paris and Sir John French's army seemed to be in doubt, -and the _U9's_ feat had "cost us three obsolete boats," but the Germans -were checked now, and the worst was over. Churchill was sending a -British naval expedition to Belgium to save Antwerp, and what was the -use of worrying, anyhow? Kitchener's army was filling up with recruits -by the thousand, and England's motto was "Business as Usual." - -Yea, verily, Britain was pursuing the even tenor of her imperturbable -way. The Savoy, at supper after theater, glittered with all its -old-time flare. The tables were thronged in the same old way with -gaily-clad women, romping chorus-girls, monocled "nuts" with hair -plastered straight back, opulent stock-brokers, theatrical celebrities -and all the other familiar people about town. The band interpolated -_Tipperary_ a little oftener between rag-time one-steps and fox-trots, -and lordlings and other bloods in khaki gave a new tinge to the picture, -but otherwise it was night-time London "as usual." The theaters and -music-halls were full. At Murray's and the Four Hundred--those dens of -revelry called "night clubs," invented for law-respecting English who -can afford five guineas a year for the privilege of wining, supping and -dancing after the Acts of Parliament send ordinary people to bed--you -could hardly wedge your way in. At the Carlton or the Piccadilly, or -for the matter of that at any other popular resort in all London, you -found yourself lucky to locate a single unpreempted place. Wherever you -went or turned, whomever you saw, it was dear old London "as usual." If -you were an impulsive, excitable, sentimental American and thought you -were mildly rebuking your British friends when you ventured to wonder at -the extraordinary naturalness of life in the West End, or at Walton -Heath golf links, or at Chelsea football grounds, or at the Newmarket -race-course, you found yourself unconsciously paying a tribute to -"British character." For John Bull, far from being ashamed of adhering -religiously to peace-time activities, was positively proud of the -exhibition of "reserve" and "poise" and "calmness" which he was now -giving. People talked about the war, of course. They hardly mentioned -anything else. But if you had the patience to listen to their airy, -fairy converse, you soon gathered that they spoke of it exclusively as -something about which no self-respecting Englishman or woman purposed -for a solitary moment to get indecorously agitated. There were even -people who confessed that the war was beginning to "bore" them. - -As for myself, I had a go at British acquaintances from two entirely -different standpoints. In the first place, fresh from America, where -the war had burnt into people's minds as deeply almost as if it were -their own destiny which was at stake, I was still filled with the -energizing atmosphere omnipresent there. I remembered how even our puny -war with Spain had gripped the nation's thought and concentrated it to -the exclusion of all else. I could not, for the life of me, understand -how Englishmen, with the history of the preceding eight weeks before -them, could still look upon "business as usual" as the desideratum for -which the moment insistently called. I knew, I thought, how Americans -would feel and act at such an hour; and as I had in my time dozed -through many after-dinner speeches about the "kindred ideals" and -"identical habits of thought" which so indissolubly bound the -English-speaking nations, I ventured to marvel, and even at times to -swear, at the spectacle of national nonchalance which Britain at the -beginning of October, 1914, so resolutely presented. It was -magnificent, but it was not war. - -In the second place, I was conscious, with the knowledge and conviction -of a long-time eye-witness, of both the visible and the dormant strength -of Germany. I had written literally reams, during the preceding eight -years, about Teuton preparations on land, in the air and on the sea. I -had discussed the German War Party, its leaders and its literature, its -aspirations and its plans, till I often grew weary of the task, not so -much because pacifist critics in England pilloried me as a war-monger -and an alarmist, but because there was a monotony in that sort of news -about Germany which strained even the patience of those whose duty it -was to report it. When Englishmen now told me, as so many of them did, -that they would "muddle through this show," as they had "muddled -through" in South Africa and on all the other occasions in Britain's -martial past, I grew sick at heart. I knew, as everybody who had lived -in Germany between 1904 and 1914 and kept his ears and eyes open knew, -that "muddling through" would never beat the Germans, even if it had -finally overcome the Boers. I knew, and anybody really acquainted with -the Germans knew, that they would not be vanquished so long as there was -a man or a mark with which to fight. I knew that nothing short of the -supreme effort which the British Empire and its Allies could put forth -would suffice to overcome the most highly-organized and efficiently -patriotic people which had ever gone to war. I knew that the German -General Staff and the other war-makers of the Fatherland had long -reckoned, in the emergency of a struggle with England, on the very thing -of which my eyes were now witness--British reluctance to shake off the -shackles of ease and comfort and buckle down, a nation in arms, to the -inconvenient and grim realities of war. Of these things I thought, and -the reflection was disquieting, as I saw the mad whirl of light, -frivolity and care-free joy which the Savoy at supper-time, plainly -epitomizing London life at the moment, presented night after night. -"Business as usual!" It was small comfort my English friends provided, -when, remonstrating with me for my foolish solicitude, they assured me -that my misgivings were misplaced because I was hopelessly ignorant of -"the British character." - -England, it was obvious, was like the manager of "Luna Park" in Berlin. -She was afraid the war might become "a bit conspicuous," and was, -moreover, determined that it should not. I remember well the crushing -rebuke administered to me by a Britisher of international renown when I -intruded my view of all these things. I had offered, in a desire to -hold the mirror up to Nature and let Londoners see how they looked to -foreigners at so transcendent a moment in their national existence, to -produce a little article entitled "What an American Thinks of the -English in War-Time." I even went to the length of putting my thoughts -on paper and submitting the manuscript. I did so with considerable -confidence, because the celebrity in question is a notorious "Wake Up, -England!" man. But he returned my masterpiece with a look and gesture -mingling pity and contempt for my wretched unfamiliarity with "the -British character." - -"My dear Wile," he explained, "you do not understand us. You forget -that this war is not an American World's Championship baseball series. -You mustn't try to foist transatlantic brass-band methods on us. It is -not the British way." - -Lest I convey the impression that I had advocated rousing the British -lion from his slumbers by wild and woolly western methods palpably -unsuited to his stoical temperament, let me make haste to explain that I -was pleading for nothing but a system which would, spectacularly if -necessary, do something to let the British public at least know that -they had a war on their hands, and popularize it. A great contingent of -Indian troops, led by Maharajahs and Rajputs, Maliks, Rajahs and Jams, -had arrived in Europe, tarried in England and been slipped, in the dead -of a Channel night, across to France. An entire army from Canada was -encamped on Salisbury Plain, and no one had seen a sign of it except an -occasional detachment of boisterous subalterns, many with a pronounced -"American accent," who had kicked up a row in some Leicester Square -music-hall the night before. The Nelson monument in Trafalgar Square -was desecrated with recruiting circus-bills which would have delighted -the heart of Barnum, and every taxicab wind-shield in town beseeched -passers-by to "enlist for the duration of the war." But why, I had had -the temerity to inquire in my little "Wake Up, England!" homily, which -was rejected because it revealed no insight into "British character," -were not the turbaned Gurkhas and the swarthy Sikhs and the brown men -from Punjab and Beluchistan brought to London-town and paraded up and -down the Strand and the Embankment, for all the metropolis to have a -priceless object-lesson in Imperial patriotism? Why was Kitchener -allowed to intern the young giants in khaki from Ontario, Quebec, -Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia in the hidden recesses of the -provinces, instead of giving Londoners a glimpse of Colonial love of -mother country in the flesh? It was due to the Indians and to the -Canadians themselves, no less than to London, I argued, that opportunity -should be provided to pay homage to the men who had crossed the seas to -fight for Motherland. Non-British though I am, I felt morally certain -that even my Hoosier bosom would swell with emotion in the presence of -so ocular a demonstration of Britain's Imperial solidarity in the day of -trial. But my suggestions were rejected as unbecomingly boisterous in -their intent, good enough for the Polo Grounds or Madison Square Garden, -but grotesquely out of place in England. If carried out, you see, they -would inevitably have made the war "a bit conspicuous." - -[Illustration: Kitchener's army] - -That the war was almost invisibly hidden, as far as the daily life of -the people was concerned, was primarily due to the bureaucratic and -autocratic methods of the censorship. Bureaucracy and autocracy in -Germany, for instance, have their redeeming qualities. They are usually -highly efficient, and their arrogance and high-handedness are tolerated -because accompanied by a maximum of practical effectiveness. When -England established her war censorship, she went over to bureaucracy and -autocracy, as made in Germany, but lamentably lacking in the saving -graces of the system as there exemplified. In vain the Press, now -muzzled almost as effectually as if the Magna Charta and free speech had -never existed, stormed and fumed against the tyranny of the "Press -Bureau," the innocuous title chosen for the Juggernaut which, before six -months had passed, was to grind British journalistic liberties into the -dust. It was discovered that the "Bureau" was staffed for the most part -by amiable gentlemen no longer fit for active duty in the army and navy, -who, having patriotically offered their services to King and country, -had been pitchforked indiscriminately into billets which clothed them -with more real influence on the war than if they had commanded armies or -fleets. It became painfully apparent that news of the war was being -suppressed, mutilated and generally mismanaged either by military men -who knew nothing of journalism, or by journalists who were profoundly -ignorant of military matters--for the official censor caused it to be -announced, in self-defense, that he had associated with the Bureau in an -advisory capacity a couple of eminent ex-editors. - -Just who was responsible for annihilating the elementary rights of the -British Press never became quite clear. Some blamed Kitchener. His -hostility to journalists and journalism was notorious, though "With -Kitchener to Khartoum," by the most distinguished special correspondent -of our time, the late G. W. Steevens, who died in _The Daily Mail's_ -service during the South African war, probably did as much to give "K." -a reputation as anything which England's War Minister ever did in the -field. Others said Joffre was the man who had put the lid on. Whoever -laid down the law saw that it was relentlessly enforced. Petitions, -protests, cajolings, threats, complaints, abuse--all were in vain. The -antics of the "Press Bureau" became more exasperating and inexplicable -from day to day. Also more domineering, if common report could be -believed, for presently Fleet Street heard that "K." had intimated to a -mighty newspaper magnate that if the latter did not mend his ways, and -abate his insistence, "K." had the power, and would not shrink from -using it, to incarcerate even a peer of the realm in the Tower and turn -his entire "plant" into junk. That dire threat, I imagine, was just one -of the myriad of chatterbox rumors with which the air in England, all -through the war, fairly sizzled. At any rate, it failed utterly to curb -the stormy petrel to terrorize whom it was said to have been uttered, -for his onslaughts on the censorship grew, instead of diminishing, in -intensity as the "war in the dark" proceeded. - -But it was in its treatment of news destined for the United States that -the Press Bureau most convincingly revealed its lack of imagination. -Here was Germany leaving no stone unturned to take American sympathy by -storm. The Bernstorff-Dernburg-Münsterberg campaign was in full blast. -Von Wiegand in Berlin was interviewing the Crown Prince and Princess, -von Tirpitz and von Bernhardi, Zeppelin, Hindenburg and Falkenhayn, and -only narrowly escaped interviewing the Kaiser himself. American -correspondents arriving in Germany were received with open arms, and had -but to ask, in order to receive. Sometimes they received without -asking. They could see anybody and go anywhere. That was German -efficiency--and imagination--at work. The Germans realized that we are -a newspaper-reading community. They knew that the best way in the world -to win American newspapers' and American newspapermen's sympathy is to -give them news. So they did it. When the German Crown Prince told the -correspondent of the United Press that he would "love" to see American -baseball, that he longed to hunt big game in Alaska, and that Jack -London was his favorite author, he broke a lance for the Fatherland's -cause in the United States that a four-hundred-fifty-paged "unhuman" -British White Paper could never hope to equal. Somebody with an -imagination--probably Bernstorff--had put a flea in Berlin's ear, and -the result was open-house for American journalists for the duration of -the war. - -What was happening in London? There were plenty of American -newspapermen on the ground, not only special correspondents who had come -over to join the British army in the field, like Will Irwin, "Bell" -Shepherd, Alexander Powell, Arthur Ruhl, or Frederick Palmer, to name -only a few of them, but resident London correspondents who had lived in -England a dozen years, like Edward Price Bell of the _Chicago Daily -News_, Ernest Marshall of the _New York Times_, or James M. Tuohy of the -_New York World_, who were well known to the British authorities as men -of judgment, integrity and responsibility. But resident or newcomer, -nothing but inconsequential facilities or the cold shoulder awaited them -when they went to the Press Bureau, cap in hand, to ask even the most -rudimentary professional courtesies for themselves or their papers. -Quite apart from the indignities thus heaped on American correspondents, -the Press Bureau, when it suppressed or butchered their dispatches, left -pitiably out of account the susceptibilities of the great neutral -news-devouring community which these men represented. Therein lay the -real infamy. Think of it. Here was Great Britain and her Government -confessedly anxious for American moral support in the war, and something -more than that, and yet a subordinate department seemed clothed with -authority to flout, exasperate and bully the agency directly responsible -for the production of public sentiment in the United States. I call it -a tremendous tribute to the sincerity and depth of our loyalty to the -Allies' cause that we never for a moment allowed it to waver, even in -the face of the British Press Bureau's arrant provocation. The American -Press, asking for bread in England, received a stone. That it accepted -it, and went on playing the Allies' game, has been one of the miracles -of the war, for which these British Isles have reason to be profoundly -grateful. - -[Illustration: 5 Questions to those who employ male servants] - -Inherent imperturbability and unimaginative censorship thus combined in -the early weeks of the war, on the one hand to minimize popular -conceptions of the struggle's magnitude in England, and on the other to -smother enthusiasm for it. You can not fully realize the immensity of -the task if you are not permitted by your overlords to see it in its -true proportions. You can certainly not become ecstatic about it if -they insist on having it painted in exclusively drab, routine and -joy-killing tints, when they are not covering it up altogether. Yet -British patriotism was triumphing over all these natural and artificial -handicaps. Kitchener was not only calling for five hundred thousand -volunteers, but intimated that he would soon be asking for another five -hundred thousand. He was getting them. London and the provinces were -now plastered with recruiting posters, calling in compelling language -for soldiers. "Your King and Country Need You!" Thus ran the most -direct and frank appeal. By the tens of thousands men answered it. The -desecrating bill-board which we know in America is an unknown -excrescence in the British Isles, but, for the purposes of advertising -for men for "Kitchener's Army," practically every vacant space in the -Kingdom was now turned into a hoarding. The base of Nelson's Column in -Trafalgar Square was splashed red, white and blue, black and yellow, -green and orange, and every other shade capable of lending distinction -to an eye-arresting poster. The great hotels and theaters, banks, -government offices, and even churches, turned their walls and windows -over to Kitchener's advertising department for recruiting-bills, and -occasionally themselves put up huge signs across their most imposing -facades with such legends as: - -TO ARMS! RALLY ROUND THE FLAG! -TO ARMS! YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU! -TO ARMS! ENLIST AT ONCE FOR THE WAR ONLY! - - -or - - -TO-DAY, YOUNG MAN, YOU ARE NEEDED -TO FIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTRY'S DEFENSE! -FALL IN! JOIN THE ARMY AT ONCE! - - -or - - -MEN OF BRITAIN, UPHOLD YOUR COUNTRY'S -HONOR AND LIBERTY! SERVE WITH -YOUR FRIENDS! - - -or you would read what the King had said: - - -"NO PRICE CAN BE TOO HIGH WHEN -HONOR AND LIBERTY ARE AT STAKE." - - -Even the fences of the parks, the windows and sides of the omnibuses and -the wind-shields of the taxicabs reminded men every hour of the day and -night that "Your King and Country Need You." - -I recall, with amusement, how "scandalized" some Americans were at -England's resort to "circus methods" to manufacture an army. I remember -that pert (and extremely pretty) young Chicago newspaper-woman who, -having come over from Paris which had not needed to advertise for an -army, because France had one, was mortified beyond words to find London -screaming with "Your-King-and-Country-Need-You" sign literature. She -was so stirred by this "undignified exhibition" that she sat down before -she had been in town forty-eight hours and dashed off to her paper just -what she thought about "degenerate Britain." She was convinced that a -nation so "hopelessly unpatriotic" that it had to advertise for -defenders was "doomed." Her erudite observations made a deep impression -on her editors, who, in a learned editorial asked gravely whether the -British Empire was "reaching the Diocletian period of the Romans." - -[Illustration: 4 Questions to the Women of England] - -As a matter of fact, Kitchener's project to advertise for an army was -the one ray of imagination, and a boundlessly encouraging one, which the -War Office had so far revealed. It showed even more imagination in -entrusting the technique of the scheme to a professional, Mr. Hedley F. -Le Bas, who, besides bringing to the task the expert knowledge of a -publisher, had once been a trooper in the 15th Hussars, and knew and -loved the army. Mr. Le Bas modestly disclaims credit for originating -the plan to create an army of millions by advertisement. He says that -the Duke of Wellington beat him to it. A hundred years ago, when -England was at grips with the oppressor of that day, a poster appeal for -soldiers was issued, which is _prima facie_ evidence that advertising is -not a modern invention. Only a few Englishmen, and probably still fewer -Americans, are aware that even in Napoleonic times advertising for an -army was _de rigueur_, and as the invitation to "The Warriors of -Manchester" was, to a certain extent, the spiritual inspiration of -Kitchener's remarkable recruit-getting campaign, I make no apologies, -despite its raciness, for reproducing on the following page a document -of genuinely historical value. - -The methods to which the American Democracy has resorted to secure -soldiers for her wars were also in the minds of Lord Kitchener and Mr. -Le Bas. Indeed, the practises of President Lincoln, in respect of -raising armies, were the model to which the British Government from the -start determined to adhere. It was discovered that Lincoln and Seward -had not shrunk from appealing to the men of the North from the hoardings -and through the newspapers, while the advertisements of the United -States army and navy during the Spanish-American War were a modern -example of recruiting measures in a country where the absence of -conscription compels a Government, in the hour of emergency, to scrape -an army together by hook or crook. Then the constant advertising by our -War and Navy departments, even in peace-times, proved that there must be -efficacy in asking men to serve their country in posters, magazines or -newspaper-columns in which they were also being persuasively urged to -buy automobiles, "quality" clothes or shaving-sticks. Kitchener's -"advertising campaign" was destined, before the war was old, to be the -target of bitter attack, but the skill, persistence and -comprehensiveness with which it was prosecuted played an immense rôle in -the creation of the greatest volunteer army in history. It opened a new -epoch in advertising and clothed that art with a distinction which will -never be taken from it. The seal of an Empire has been placed on the -maxim that it pays to advertise. - -[Illustration: To the Warriors of Manchester.] - -By the end of October, after three months of war, the muster of the -British Empire was in full progress. Complacency and nonchalance in -London were still wretchedly wide-spread, but the call of the Motherland -for soldiers was echoing around the world. Wherever Britons were -domiciled, it was answered. It penetrated into far-off British -Columbia, where young Englishmen, comfortably settled in new existences, -abandoned them unhesitatingly. It was heard in even more distant -climes, like Australia, New Zealand and Africa, where adventurous -spirits who had crossed the seas to seek their fortunes in lands of -promise were now dominated by no other ambition than to "do their bit" -for King and country. Even emigrated Irishmen, long irreconcilable, -were electrified by John Redmond's clarion message, and they, too, -turned their faces homeward. By the ides of November whole shiploads of -repatriated Britons, returning from the four points of the compass, -reached the island shores, fired by one consuming purpose. - -These home-coming patriots were not only rendering valiant service by -placing their lives at the King's disposal, but they were demonstrating, -along with native-born Canadians, South Africans, New Zealanders, -Australians and Indians, that one of Germany's fondest dreams was the -hollowest of fantasies. I had been familiar for years with a German -political literature based on the roseate theory that, once Great -Britain was embroiled in a great European war, her world-wide Empire -would crack and tumble like a house of cards in a holocaust. Had not -Sir Wilfred Laurier on a famous occasion declared that Canada would -never be "drawn into the vortex of European militarism"? Were not the -Boers thirsting restlessly for revenge and the hour of deliverance from -the British yoke? Were not Republican sentiments notoriously rife in -Australia and New Zealand, and would not Labor Governments in those -remote regions seize eagerly on coveted opportunity to snap the silken -cords which bound them to England, and declare their independence? Would -not India, the enslaved Empire of the vassal Rajahs, leap at the throat -of an England preoccupied in Europe and drive the tyrant into the sea? -These were the thoughts which were discussed by Teuton political seers -as something more than things which Germany merely desired and hoped -for. They were treated as axiomatic certainties. The rally round the -Union Jack by the Britons of Australia and New Zealand, Canada and South -Africa, Nova Scotia and Jamaica, Barbadoes and Ceylon, British Guiana -and Mauritius, Newfoundland and New Brunswick, was Germany's great -illusion. When the "conquered Boers" under Botha, the "alienated Irish" -under Redmond, the "rebellious Indians" under maharajahs and princes, -even the "downtrodden" black Basutos, Barotses, Masai and Maoris of -Africa and Australasia under their native chieftains, announced that -they, too, were ready to bleed for the Empire, Germany's awakening was -rude and complete. London might be callous, pleasure-loving and -unperturbed. But the Empire was alive both to the peril and the duty of -the hour, and when it vowed to face the one and absolve the other an -oath was sworn which spelled British invincibility. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - WAR IN THE DARK - - -It is November, 1914. Britain is waking, but is far from awake. Nearly -everybody and everything are proud to be "as usual." The Fleet has been -able to secure but one action with the Germans--Beatty's smashing blow -at the Kaiser's cruiser squadron in the bight of Heligoland. A great -trophy of the engagement is in hand--Admiral von Tirpitz' son, -watch-officer in the Mainz, a prisoner in Wales. For a month and more -the war has been raging furiously in the west all the way from the Alps -to the North Sea. Antwerp is taken, after a farce-comedy attempt at -relief by levies of raw British naval reserves. Joffre is at sanguinary -grips with the "Boches" in the Aisne country. The twelve or fifteen -miles of British front in the northernmost corner of France and that -patch of Flanders not yet in the enemy's hands is the scene of -ceaseless, desperate combat. Jellicoe's dreadnoughts and destroyers -take part at intervals in the grim battle for the channel coast. Ostend -has fallen. - -The German objective farthest west is now clear. The Berlin newspapers -head-line the tidings from Flanders "the Road to Calais." Major Moraht -in the _Tageblatt_ acknowledges that the campaign for the base from -which Napoleon essayed to invade England is "a matter of life or death" -for the Germans. Sir John French and the remnant of Belgium's little -army steel themselves for a stone-wall defense. Again and again they -keep the frenzied enemy at bay. Have you ever seen Harvard holding the -Yale eleven on the five-yard line three minutes before the call of time -in the last half, with dark gathering so fast that you could hardly -distinguish crimson from blue? Do you remember Yale's ferocious first, -second, third, yet always vain, attempts to batter and plunge her way -through Harvard's concrete, immobile phalanx? If you do, and if your -red-blooded heart has tingled at some such spectacle of young American -bulldoggedness, which can be seen West as well as East, in the North and -in the South, just as commonly as in the New Haven bowl, you will be -able to visualize, infinitesimally, the titanic grapple around Dixmude, -Ypres and the Yser in the bloody days and hellish nights of October and -November, 1914. "The Watch in the Mud" was the way German military -critics paraphrased their national anthem, to describe the situation in -Flanders, for the Belgians had now flooded the region contiguous to the -Yser Canal, and the Kaiser's legions, in their breathless thrust for -Calais, were fighting in mire and slush to their boot-tops. More than -one company of _Feldgrauer_ was ingloriously drowned. - -The British were engaged in precisely the operation for which their -temperament best fits them--"holding." The German attack rocked against -them remorselessly, giving neither assailant nor defender rest or -quarter. But the bulldog "held." He was mauled unconscionably and bled -profusely. Thousands upon thousands of his teeth were knocked out, and -he was half-blind, and limped. Yet he "held." Winter had come. Men -lived in trenches which had been merely water-logged ditches, but were -now frozen into rock. The German eagle, hammered, of course, no less -cruelly than the bulldog, was still screaming and clawing, in his mad -desire to cleave a way to Calais. But, mangled and scarred as he was, -the bulldog barked "No!" He had set his squatty bow-legs, disjointed -though they were, squarely across "the Road to Calais." There he -intended to stay. It could be traversed, that road, only through a -welter of blood which, regardless as German commanders are of the cost -when they set themselves an objective, gave the General Staff at Berlin -furiously to ponder. - -I have already intimated that Britain all this tempestuous while was -rubbing her eyes, but was only partially open-eyed. It was not -altogether Britain's fault. The immutable Censorship still gave the -public no real glimmer of the history-making struggle going on almost -within ear-shot of the chalk-cliffs of Dover. Throughout the entire -month of October, four weeks as crammed with death and glory as in all -England's martial history, Sir John French was permitted to take the -public into his confidence but on one single occasion--and that, a -dispatch dealing with operations six weeks old! For its news of the -heroic deeds and Spartan sufferings of the greatest army it ever sent -abroad, the British Empire was compelled to depend on stilted French -_communiques_ and the fantastic or irrelevant narratives of an official -"eye-witness at British Headquarters," who was allowed to bamboozle the -nation for months before his flow of mediocrity and piffle was choked -off by disgruntled public opinion. England was fighting her greatest war -in Cimmerian darkness. Casualty lists, terrible in their regularity and -magnitude, kept on coming, but of the coincident imperishable triumphs -of British sacrifice and courage, not a word. One's _Illustrated London -News_ and _Sphere_ printed depressing double-pages weekly, filled with -pictures of England's masculine flower killed in action "somewhere in -France" or "somewhere in Flanders." But of the manner in which their -precious lives had been laid down, of the price they had made the -Germans pay for them, not a syllable. If by accident some correspondent -or newspaper secured the account of an engagement, which ventured so -much as to hint with some picturesqueness of detail how Englishmen were -dying, the Press Bureau guillotine came down on the narrative with a -crash which taught the offender to mend his ways for the future. - -Under the circumstances it was not surprising to hear well-founded -reports that recruiting was falling off. In the clubs men said that -Kitchener's "first half-million" was in hand, but that men for the -second five hundred thousand, for which the War Office had now called, -were holding back to a disappointing, and even disquieting, degree. -Meantime the popular ballad of the hour was, appropriately, Paul Rubens' -"Your King and Country Want You"--"a women's recruiting song," as its -sub-title runs. Its opening verse and chorus tell their own story: - - We've watched you playing cricket - And every kind of game. - At football, golf and polo, - You men have made your name. - But now your country calls you - To play your part in war, - And no matter what befalls you, - We shall love you all the more. - So, come and join the forces - As your fathers did before. - - CHORUS - - Oh! We don't want to lose you, - But we think you ought to go. - For your King and your Country - Both need you so! - We shall want you, and miss you, - But with all our might and main - We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you, - When you come back again! - -These words, in prosaic type, look banal. Their appeal seems trite. -Yet rendered to plaintive melody by such an operatic artist as little -Maggie Teyte, they went straight to men's hearts. They must have sent -thousands upon thousands of cricketers, footballers, golfers and -poloists--that is a classification which takes in pretty nearly all -Englishmen--into khaki and training-camps. But the growing insistence -with which the walls and windows of Old England were plastered with -recruiting posters--even entire front pages of newspapers were now -employed to advertise that "Your King and Country Need You"--indicated -that Kitchener's army was not being built up yet by the desired leaps -and bounds. Obviously the war needed some other kind of advertising -than even the accomplished Mr. Le Bas could give it. It was not strange -that the enthusiasm of Englishmen, cheated of the chance to know what -was really going on at the front, was beginning to find expression in -other directions. - -[Illustration: Greeting the Kaiser (in helmet) the day he declared -Germany "in a state of war," July 31st, 1914.] - -It was not magnificent, for example, but it was natural, that Englishmen -should, in all the circumstances, reveal a very materialistic passion to -"capture Germany's trade." Denied the opportunity of "enthusing" over -events at the seat of war, they proceeded to dedicate themselves -energetically to the task of eliminating the Germans as a factor in the -markets of the world. A profound book on the subject appeared--_The War -on German Trade_, with the sub-titles of "Ammunition for Civilians" and -"Hints for a Plan of Campaign." My old friend, Sidney Whitman, the -distinguished author of _Imperial Germany_, dignified it with a preface. -England had not entered upon the war "in a commercial spirit or with a -commercial purpose," he said, "yet it behooves her to seize and hold -fast the ripe fruit which has dropped into Englishmen's lap--as a first -incident in the clash of nations." The volume had frankly been -published, explained Whitman, "with the purpose of stimulating the -English manufacturer and the English trader to seize the opportunities -thrust upon them by the war." - -Then, as the Censorship, as callous to criticism and abuse as if it were -a sphinx, still insisted that Englishmen must fight and die in the dark, -as far as their kith and kin were concerned, patriotism at home found -vent in a crusade against the Germans still at large on British soil. -They numbered thousands. They were a distinct and undeniable danger. -In days of peace they spied patriotically and flagrantly, thanks to John -Bull's easy-going, guileless toleration of the stranger within his gate. -Personally I never believed that the German waiters and barbers in the -Savoy or the Carlton, and their myriad of _confrères_ elsewhere in the -country, were the advance guard of the German army of invasion in -disguise. Nor did I imagine (as I actually made a very British friend -once seriously believe) that Appenrodt's restaurants in the Strand and -Piccadilly were in reality masked commissariat-stations of the Kaiser's -General Staff. Nor could even so persuasive an authority as William Le -Queux, author of _German Spies in England_, convince me that every -German resident who kept homing-pigeons, owned a country-place near the -East Coast suitable for wireless, or got drunk on the Kaiser's birthday -in the Gambrinus restaurant in Glasshouse Street, was a paid member of -the Berlin secret-service. Most of these stories made me smile as -broadly as the "star" rumor of the war--the story that seventy thousand -armed Russians had been "actually seen" by Heaven knows how many -veracious Britons sneaking across England from Newcastle to Southampton, -on their stealthy way from Archangel to the Western allied front. - -Yet it was palpably not the hour for German subjects, any number of them -of military age and ardor, to be at large in England. So Britain, in a -tardy manifestation of self-preservation, began to arrest and intern the -Kaiser's hapless subjects, who hitherto had suffered no impairment of -their liberties except detention in the country, compulsory visits to -the police, and restriction of movement (except by special permission) -to an area five miles from their domicile. The German is far too much of -a patriot to be trusted to do as he pleases in a country with which his -Fatherland is at war. He never forgets that he is a German _first_, and -a stock-broker earning commissions in London, a barber taking English -tips, or a waiter spilling English soup, afterward. It is always -_Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles_ with him. He may not have made a -profession or habit of writing home to Berlin or Hamburg, Cologne or -Breslau, Kiel or Wilhelmshaven, what he noted of interest at Aldershot, -Portsmouth, Dover, Woolwich, or Sheerness, or what his English friends -might from time to time tell him of interest at the Admiralty or the War -Office. But it was "bomb-sure," as the Teuton idiom rather -appropriately puts it, that if ever a British state secret fell into -Herr Apfelbaum's hands on the Stock Exchange, or into Johann's in the -"hair-dressing saloon" of the Ritz, or into Gustav's at the grillroom of -the Piccadilly, that morsel would sooner or later find its way to -Germany. When one considered that Englishmen of the highest class--one -even said the King had a German valet!--were attended night and day, in -their homes, their clubs, their offices and their favorite "American -bars," hotels, grillrooms, cafés and restaurants by Germans, with eyes -to see and ears to hear, it was small wonder that an irresistible cry -was sent up before the winter of war had advanced very far, that these -"enemy aliens" should not be merely ticketed, labeled and superficially -watched, but placed behind barbed-wire, with British sentries on guard. -And so it came to pass that Mr. McKenna, Home Secretary, whose -reluctance to intern the Germans gossip absurdly ascribed to his "German -connections," finally ordered "the enemy in our midst" to be rounded up. -Not all of them were at first taken. Thousands remained at liberty. -The British are a patient and a trusting clan. - -It was not only the acknowledged German subject in Great Britain who was -the object of the anti-Teuton crusade. The naturalized German, in many -cases the holder for years of a certificate of British citizenship, was -made to feel the blight of the wave of passion sweeping over the -country. Naturalized Germans have won in England wealth and eminence -outstripping even the heights to which they have climbed in the United -States. In the preceding reign they were the bosom companions of the -Sovereign. King Edward's intimate circle contained the Cologne -financier, Sir Ernest Cassel, and another Prussian native, Sir Felix -Semon, was His Majesty's Physician Extraordinary. In the "City," -London's Wall Street, German financiers almost dominated the picture. -Baron Schroeder (naturalized only within a few hours of the outbreak of -the war) was so great a power that citizenship was practically thrust -upon him as a measure of vital British self-protection. Sir Edgar -Speyer, like Cassel a member of the King's Privy Council, and a Baronet -besides, was not only a City magnate, but controlled London's vast -system of surface and underground traction lines, including the omnibus -service; yet his English counting-house was a branch of a parent -establishment in Frankfort-On-Main. These were a few of the outstanding -names among the "Germans" in high place in England. They by no means -exhausted the list. Domiciled in this country for years, they had, -while openly maintaining sentimental relations with their Fatherland, -played no inconspicuous rôle in British affairs, economic and political. -Any number of naturalized Germans were married to British women and were -fathers of British-born families. Scores of their sons were already -wearing King George's khaki in Kitchener's army. Sir Ernest Cassel had -given five thousand pounds to the Prince of Wales' National Relief Fund. -Yet rumor shortly afterward had him locked up in a traitor's cell in the -Tower of London! No matter how acclimatized these naturalized Germans -had become, no matter how long they had been British subjects--in many -cases their title to that distinction was half a century old--they found -themselves under a ban. They were not physically maltreated. Their -windows were not broken. Men did not spit in their faces. They were -permitted (like the rest of the British) to do "business as usual," -except the stock-brokers, who were invited to keep off 'Change. But they -were a marked class. If they ventured to visit clubs in Pall Mall or -St. James Street, to which they had paid dues for years, they were -confronted with notices reading: - - +-------------------------------------------------+ - | | - | Members of German or Austrian nationality | - | are requested, in their own interests, not | - | to frequent the club premises during the war, | - | and British members are asked not to | - | bring to the club any guests of enemy | - | nationality. | - | | - +-------------------------------------------------+ - -Or, if the naturalized German, no matter whether his boy had just fallen -at Ypres or not, went to his favorite golf-club of a Saturday or Sunday, -he received a greeting to the same effect. The virtue of tolerance, a -prized British quality, was vanishing from the face of these war-ridden -isles. - -The anti-German fury in England claimed an early victim and a shining -mark--His Serene Highness Vice-Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg, who, -as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, was practically in supreme control -of British strategy at sea. Prince Louis is a native-born Austrian, and -although he had been a naturalized British subject and attached to the -Royal Navy since 1868, and in 1884 married into the British Royal Family -by wedding his own cousin, Princess Victoria of Hesse, a grand-daughter -of Queen Victoria, a campaign inaugurated and mercilessly prosecuted by -the aristocratic _Morning Post_, led, on October 29, to the Prince's -resignation. Public opinion unreservedly approved the disappearance -from a post, from which it was not too much to say the destinies of the -Empire were controlled, of a man who was brother-in-law of Prince Henry -of Prussia, the Inspector-General of the German Navy, and of the Grand -Duke of Hesse, one of the Kaiser's federated allies. The same spirit of -"Safety First" which sent the German barbers and waiters to camps in -Frith Hill and the Isle of Man dispatched Vice-Admiral Prince Louis of -Battenberg into official oblivion. Nobody actually distrusted his -patriotism. But England was in no humor to run even remote risks. He -had to go. Satisfaction over Battenberg's retirement was only slightly -modified by a later revelation that it was Prince Louis himself, and not -Mr. Churchill, as universally supposed, who was chiefly responsible for -the mobilization of the British Fleet just before the outbreak of war in -consequence of having "commanded the ships to stand fast, instead of -demobilizing as ordered." - -November was a month of kaleidoscopic sorrow and joy for the British. -It began in gloom, with Turkey's entry into the war and the inherent -menace to Egypt which that event denoted. Then came the great naval -action off Chili, with first blood to the Kaiser in the only regulation -stand-up battle in which British and German warships had so far met. -The sinking of Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock's flagship, the cruiser -_Good Hope_, and her companion, the _Monmouth_, by Admiral Count von -Spee's cruiser squadron, with the loss of one thousand four hundred -precious lives, was a bitter blow. Lord Charles Beresford, under whom -Cradock had once served, told me that his death was a more serious loss -to the British Fleet than a squadron of cruisers. - -It was a depressing beginning for the First Sea Lordship of Lord -"Jackie" Fisher, who succeeded Prince Louis of Battenberg. Churchill -was still First Lord of the Admiralty--what we in the United States -should call Secretary of the Navy--but Fisher, as First Sea Lord, was in -practical control of everything connected with the actual activities of -the Fleet. The First Lord of the Admiralty's business is to get ships -for the navy. The First Sea Lord's task is to man, arm and fight them. -Fisher lost no time in angry remorse over Cradock's disaster. He set -about to repair it. He applied forthwith the "Fisher touch." He -ascertained that it was Rear-Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee, -Chief of the War Staff, who had been chiefly responsible for dispatching -Cradock's squadron to waters in which it would have to meet a German -force superior in both tonnage and gun-power. Whereupon Fisher ordered -Sturdee to place himself at the head of a squadron which was to find and -destroy von Spee, and not come back until it had done so. Sturdee -"delivered the goods" with neatness and dispatch. Almost a month later -to the day--it is a fortnight's journey from British waters to the -Southern Atlantic even for twenty-seven-knot battle-cruisers--he carried -out Fisher's imperious orders. On December 8 Cradock was gloriously -avenged. Von Spee in his flagship, the _Scharnhorst_, together with the -sister cruiser _Gneisenau_ and the smaller _Leipzig_, was sent to the -bottom off the Falkland Islands, and the remaining units in the German -squadron, the _Dresden_ and _Nürnberg_, were accounted for later. -Britain breathed easier. The bulldog breed in her navy was still to be -relied upon. Everybody instinctively felt that there was any number of -more Sturdees and ships and guns and sailors ready to do equally -invincible service for England if the Germans would but give them the -chance von Spee had offered at the Falklands. - -Spirits which had drooped when Cradock was lost were revived ten days -later by the most welcome piece of naval news the British people had had -since the war began--the destruction of the Kaiser's champion -commerce-raider _Emden_ by the Australian cruiser _Sydney_ off the Cocos -Islands and the capture of her intrepid commander, Captain von Müller, -and many of his crew. The _Emden_ sank seventeen ships and cargoes -worth eleven million dollars before her career was ended. But von -Müller won universal renown and even popularity in Great Britain for his -daring, "sportsmanship" and gallantry to vanquished merchantmen. Germans -do not appreciate such a spirit, and do not deserve to be its -beneficiary--the utter lack of the sporting instinct in the Fatherland -is responsible for that unfortunate fact--yet if von Müller had been -landed a prisoner of war in England and could have been paraded down -Pall Mall, he might have counted confidently on a welcome which -Englishmen customarily reserve for their own heroes. Here and there in -London protests were raised against the encomiums which almost every -newspaper, and for the matter of that almost every Englishman, uttered -in praise of von Muller's vindication of the nobility of the sea, but -the overwhelmingly prevalent opinion was that he had "played the game" -and, pirate though he was, deserved well of a race which still holds -high the traditions of the naval service. - -Ever-changing and stirring were November's events--the capitulation of -Germany's prized Chinese colony of Kiau-Chau to the besieging Japanese; -Lord Roberts' tragic death in the field among the soldiers he loved so -well, the Indians who had come to Europe to fight Britain's battles; the -still victorious advance of the Russians in East Prussia, though -Hindenburg's smashing blow in the Tannenberg swamps had been delivered -many weeks before; the honorable acquittal of Rear-Admiral E. C. T. -Troubridge, commanding the Mediterranean cruiser squadron, on the charge -of having allowed the German cruisers _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ to slip -through his meshes into Constantinople--the Admiral had applied for a -court-martial, to clear himself of a grotesque accusation that a -relationship with the captain of the _Goeben_ had induced him to let the -Germans through. But all these things combined left no such indelible -impression on my mind as the Lord Mayor's dinner at the Guildhall in the -city of London on the night of November 9. That function, the -inauguration of the new chief magistrate, is celebrated in British -history as the annual occasion on which leaders of the State promulgate -some great new line of Governmental policy--a national keynote for the -year to come. The Guildhall dinner in the midst of Britain's greatest -war was sure to be of immemorial significance, and my heart beat high -with anticipation when Lord Northcliffe assigned me to attend it and -record an American's impressions of England's most august feast. - -Guildhall was the scene of a famous flamboyancy by the Kaiser not so -many years ago, when he had talked about the comparatively firmer -consistency of blood compared to water and consecrated himself to the -cause of Anglo-German peace and friendship. I was keenly anxious to -hear what sort of sentiments would echo through the century-old -sanctuary of the City to-night, with men like Asquith, Balfour, -Kitchener, Churchill and Cambon, the French Ambassador, as the speakers. -I looked forward to an evening sure to be crowded with imperishable -memories. I was not disappointed. At midnight when it was all over, I -sat down to write "an American's impressions" for _The Daily Mail_, and -as they were exuberant with the freshness of mental sensations just -experienced and have not cooled in the sincerity of their utterance in -the long interval which has supervened, I make no apology for repeating -them herewith verbatim: - -"When I became the joyful recipient of an invitation to attend last -night's Guildhall banquet I reveled in the prospect of a feast of -Bacchanalian pomp and pageantry. I expected to witness nothing much -except a Lord Mayor's 'show,' translated into Lucullian environment, a -riot of food, drink, cardinal robes, gold braid, gold chains, gold -sticks, wigs and the other trappings of mayoral magnificence. I came -away utterly disillusioned, for I had spent three hours in what will -live in my recollection as the Temple of British Dignity. - -"Those stately Gothic walls, whose simple groups of statuary which tell -of Wellington and Nelson and Beckford; those amazingly non-panicky war -speeches of your Romanesque premier, your grim Kitchener, your--and -our--Winston Spencer Churchill, and your polished Balfour, all made me -feel that I was tarrying for the nonce within four walls which, if they -did not envelop all the great qualities of the British race, at least -typified and epitomized them. - -"Guildhall is dignified by itself beyond my feeble hours of description. -I have never trod its historic floors before, but I have the -unmistakable impression that it has taken on fresh dignity to-day for -the words which were spoken in it yestereve. I was about to say, in the -idiom which springs more naturally to the lips of an American, 'for the -words which rang through it.' Words were not made to 'ring' through -Guildhall. They would be ludicrously out of place. An American -political spellbinder, no matter how silver-tongued, would pollute the -atmosphere of London's civic shrine. Its acoustic qualities, which I -should think were not faultless, are intended for exclusively such -oratory as put them to the test last night. - -"Guildhall's tone is the tone of Mr. Asquith--'practicing the equanimity -of our forefathers, the fluctuating fortunes of a great war will drive -us neither into exaltation nor despondency.' I thought that striking -phrase of a brilliant peroration British character in composite. It was -more than that. It was Guildhallian. The cheers for the Premier, like -those for Balfour, Churchill and Kitchener, would have been more -vociferous in my country. But my country is not British. We are not -devoid of dignity, I hope, but we have no Guildhall." - - -It was left to other hands to report in detail the speeches of the Prime -Minister, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of War. -Each uttered phrases of golden significance. Mr. Churchill was -evidently still his ebullient self, although he had not yet fulfilled -his promise of September that the German navy, if it remained in port -and refused to come out, would be "dug out like a rat from a hole," nor -had his now acknowledged personal responsibility for the fiasco of the -Antwerp naval expedition perceptibly staled his infinite buoyancy. -"Six, nine, twelve months hence," he declared, "you will begin to see -the results that will spell the doom of Germany." I had never heard -"Winston" speak before, but I understood now the charm of his -personality and the attractiveness of an oratorical style made even more -magnetic by the suggestion of a combined stammer and lisp. "In spite of -its losses," he continued, "our Navy is now stronger, and stronger -relatively to the foe, than it was on the declaration of war." Asquith -read his speech, and Kitchener was about to do the same, but Churchill, -youthful, vibrant, tense, spoke extemporaneously, and the consequent -effect was indubitably the most striking of all the oratory of the -night. - -Lord Kitchener, in khaki and with a mourning band on his arm, was -redolent of strength and impressiveness, but when he rose, clumsily -adjusted a pair of huge horn-rimmed reading glasses, and began to chant -his carefully-prepared "speech" in monotone from manuscript, he was far -less convincing, and certainly not approximately so electrifying as -Churchill. But he had messages of no less magnitude and cheer. "We may -confidently rely on the ultimate success of the Allies in the west," he -said simply. "But we want more men and still more men. We have now a -million and a quarter in training." - -But it was Asquith's peroration, at which my impressionistic sketch in -_The Daily Mail_ only hinted, which was the nugget of the night. -Englishmen still repeat it as something which puts in more terse and -concrete words than anybody else has clothed it the solemn spirit in -which they have consecrated themselves to the task now trying the -Empire's soul: - - -"It is going to be a long, drawn-out struggle. But we shall not sheathe -the sword until Belgium recovers all, and more than all, she has -sacrificed; until France is adequately secured against the menace of -aggression; until the rights of smaller nations are placed on an -unassailable foundation; until the military domination of Prussia is -finally destroyed." - -It was in that incorrigible resolve that Britain entered upon the second -calendar year of war, bleeding uncomplainingly, losing stoically, taking -what came and ruing it not; determined as she lived, to keep on until -her vow to herself was vindicated and her duty to civilization -performed. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - THE INTERNAL FOE - - -Britain's autumn of complacency faded unruffled into a winter and spring -of lassitude and bungle. Nothing, no matter how ominous or -catastrophic, seemed capable of rousing the nation to the immensity of -its emergency. The Kingdom was aflame with recruiting posters, in ever -increasingly lurid hues and language, but with amazingly little -red-blooded interest in or enthusiasm for the war. If one commented on -the oppressive and disconcerting nonchalance of the populace, one was -called a "Dismal Jimmy," or a "professional whimperer" whose mind was -poisoned by the "Northcliffe Press." If you remarked that indications -were countless that the enemy was vastly more alive to the -stupendousness of the moment than England seemed to be, you were set -down for a "pro-German," and the patriot whose guest you were when you -ventured that suggestion never invited you to dinner again. If you were -an Englishman, you were simply snubbed henceforth. If you were a -foreigner, your name may have been handed in to Scotland Yard as that of -an "alien" worth watching. Whoever you were, or whatever your views, -unless they represented unadulterated admiration of unshakable British -calm, you were headed straight for a crushing rebuke. Retribution took -the form of branding you either as pitiably ignorant of "British -character" or not knowing history well enough to realize that the -British are "slow starters" and "always muddle through somehow." You -were advised to squander your qualms on a needier cause. The "boys of -the bulldog breed" were "all right." - -You wondered, if you were a blithering, neurotic American, for example, -what _would_ stir the British temperament into something faintly -resembling ardor and emotion. Zeppelins came, despite Mr. Churchill's -swagger that a horde of "aeroplane hornets" was ready to greet and sting -them. They came periodically, leaving destruction in their wake, but -the coast towns are one hundred fifty miles away from London, and nobody -cared. They had demonstrated, it was true, that England was no longer -an island, but "they can't reach London--that's one sure thing," and, -"anyway, the time to worry about that was when they tried it." Was not -the metropolis magnificently equipped with searchlights, even if the -sky-pirates should attempt the impossible and try to pick their way up -the Thames in the dark? Then, always, there were those "hornets," and -"British coolness." - -"Scarborough Shelled by German Cruisers!" So ran the newspaper posters -in the streets at midday of December 16th, 1914, an announcement grim -with historical import. For the first time in centuries the sacred -shores of these sea-girt isles had felt the impact of bombardment. The -raid extended far along the Yorkshire coast. Whitby and Hartlepool had -been attacked--there were a hundred deaths in the latter alone. -Material damage was extensive; homes, shops, hotels, churches, hospitals -were struck and shattered. Yet England was "calm." It did not matter -in the least that there was a list of seven hundred Britons dead and -injured, or that the Kaiser's "Canal Fleet" apparently _was_ able to -risk a sortie in the North Sea. What mattered most was that the -islanders still alive were _unmoved and immovable_. That the -"baby-killers" by air and water had signally failed to "excite" or -"frighten" the country was the circumstance which made incomparably the -liveliest appeal to the imagination. Kitchener's astute recruiting -advertisers shrieked "Remember Yarmouth!" (where the Zeppelins had been) -and "Avenge Scarborough!" across the top of their newest posters, but -West End London, where the seats of the mighty are, and where the -opinion which gives tone to national thought is molded, remained -Gibraltarian. A flock of British aeroplanes assailed Cuxhaven on -Christmas Day by way of "reprisal" for the intermittent Zeppelin raids -over English territory. The attack was not noteworthy in its results, -but it gave a fresh fillip to British confidence that "everything was -all right." - -As a matter of fact, "everything" was about as all wrong as it could be. -Beneath the surface of national life a volcano was boiling and -sputtering, and though it gave early and unmistakable evidence of its -presence, British calm with invincible indifference tossed it off as a -sporadic manifestation unworthy of serious consideration. I refer to -the Labor question--to trade-unionism's revolt against reorganization of -industry for the purposes of war, and to its stubborn opposition to the -introduction of compulsory military service. As long ago as January, the -Labor controversy raised its hydra-head, and yet, in October, despite -nine months of subsequent turmoil, it only began to be recognized for -what it is--the peril which threatens these isles with danger hardly -less gigantic than invasion itself. It is the decade-old British story -of temporizing with impending menace, oblivious of its portent, serenely -conscious only that it, too, can be "muddled through," like everything -else in Britain's glorious past. It is the spirit in which Britain -almost _invited_ war with Germany, the flaming warnings of which the -islands had for years. - -The workmen on the Clyde, the engineers, mechanics and artisans -responsible for the maintenance of British life itself--for in their -hands rests the creation of the ironclads to preserve England from -invasion and the merchantmen to bring food to her shores--were the first -to cause the volcano to rumble. They objected to "overtime." The -process of "speeding up" in every department, due to the iron -necessities of war, was violating the most sacred traditions of -trade-unionism. If not forcibly checked, practises tolerated in the name -of emergency were in imminent peril of becoming fixed rules. The Clyde -workmen struck. They paid no heed to Sir George Askwith, the Chief -Industrial Commissioner, when he declared that "the requirements of the -nation were being seriously endangered." Jellicoe urgently needed those -six new destroyers waiting to be riveted. But the Clyde engineers -wanted the overtime question settled, and settled in their way; and -until it was, the navy could go hang. Englishmen were disappointed when -they read the news from Glasgow and Greenock, but they were not upset. -Matters would "right themselves." Trade-unionists were an "unreasonable -lot." But they always "came around." At any rate, there was no cause -to "worry." - -One man, a big man, was "worrying." He was Lloyd-George, whose -specialty is taking bulls by their horns. Being Welsh, it was not -"un-English" for him to dignify an emergency with its intrinsic -importance and act accordingly. He grasped instantly the menace which -the situation on the Clyde conjured up. With decision of Napoleonic -boldness in a politician to whom report ascribed the ambition to hoist -himself into a dictatorship on the shoulders of the "masses," -Lloyd-George determined to "speed up" industrial England for war by Act -of Parliament. If labor would not voluntarily throw trade-union dogma -to the wind when national existence was at stake, the possibility of -imperiling it should simply be taken from them. Thereupon he introduced -in the House of Commons an amendment to the "Defense of the Realm Act," -which provided for nothing short of Industrial Conscription. Emerged -later as the Munitions Act, it conferred enormous powers upon the -Government. Reduced to essentials, it robbed Labor of the right to -strike. It forbade lockouts, as well. It provided for compulsory -arbitration of all disputes. It withheld from a workman the right to -leave one employment and take another. It obliterated primarily and -absolutely that holiest of holy trade-union regulations, by which output -is restricted. On the other hand, it provided for the limitation of -employers' profit by establishing a system of "controlled -establishments," _i.e._, works engaged exclusively in the production of -munitions for the Government and whose financial operations could, -therefore, be exactly checked. - -The Munitions of War Act was Great Britain's longest step in the -direction of Industrial Socialism. It emanated with singular -appropriateness from Lloyd-George, the father of the German-imported -system of old age pensions and workmen's insurance introduced six years -previous. Trade-unionism was aghast at the radicalism of the new -proposals, which Mr. Balfour rightly described as the "most drastic" for -which British Parliamentary sanction had ever been sought. Lloyd-George -only partially subdued Labor's misgivings by pledging the Government's -word that the scheme applied for the duration of the war only, and that -with peace the old order of things would be automatically reestablished. - -The men on the Clyde had no sooner gone back to work, reluctantly and -sullen after a "compromise" settlement, when the dockers of Manchester, -Birkenhead and Liverpool struck on the overtime issue. Lord Kitchener, -while reviewing troops in the district, formally notified the Dock -Laborers' Union that if they "did not do all in their power to help -carry the war to a successful conclusion," he would have to "consider -what steps would be necessary" to hammer patriotism into their souls. -"K.'s" unambiguous language signally failed to impress the dockers. -They remained on strike. A deputation of shipbuilding and shipowning -firms now waited on Lloyd-George. They told him that drink, more truly -the curse of the British working classes than of any other in the world, -was at the bottom of the rebellious, lazy spirit of the men. They urged -prohibition for the period of the war. The deputation declared that -eighty per cent. of avoidable loss of time could be ascribed to drink. -Lloyd-George sympathized with that view. "We are, plainly," he said, -"fighting Germany, Austria and drink, and as far as I can see, the -greatest of these three deadly foes is drink." - -Now the miners became restless. They demanded a revision of the wage -scale in accordance with the mine-owners' notoriously swollen war -profits. Their Federation decided that notice should be given on April -1st to terminate all existing agreements at the end of June. There were -hints that the miners intended pressing not only for a "war bonus," but -for an advance of twenty per cent. on current wages. From the pits of -South Wales comes the coal which is the navy's black breath of life. A -week's idleness meant one million tons unproduced. The Government -summoned the Miners' Federation for conference. Coal prices were -already soaring. Here and there there was a shortage of supply. -Germany was jubilant. Labor's temper in the Clyde country, the docker -districts and in the colliery regions was far from improved by -Lloyd-George's support of the suggestion that drink was the root of the -industrial evil. The Chancellor of the Exchequer essayed to play a -trump card. He announced that King George, "deeply concerned over a -state of affairs which must inevitably result in the prolongation of the -horrors and burdens of this terrible war," was himself prepared to set -an august example to Labor by giving up all alcoholic liquor, "so that -no difference should be made as far as His Majesty is concerned between -the treatment of rich and poor in this question." Working-class Britain -committed wholesale _lèse-majesté_ by paying no attention to the King's -decree of self-denial. - -The sequel, though not, of course, the immediate result of King George's -total abstinence proclamation, was the outbreak of the South Wales -miners' dispute in full fury a few weeks later. Joint conference -between the Federation, the owners and the Government ended in hopeless -deadlock. The miners stubbornly refused to accept the principle of -compulsory arbitration provided by Lloyd-George's now enacted Munitions -Law. Two hundred thousand men stopped work. Threats to enforce the -punitive provisions of the law did not terrify them. The establishment -in Wales and Monmouthshire of a "Munitions Tribunal," before which they -could be haled, only made them more defiant. In London one heard -irresponsible mutterings that "a few leaders of the Federation" might -usefully be shot, and it was suggested that if England were Germany, -they would be. More than one voice advocated lynching "a few owners," -too. The country waited dutifully for the Government to employ the -"drastic powers" it had arrogated to itself only a few short weeks -before. Instead of anything so heroic, it flung Lloyd-George into the -breach. It sent him to South Wales, and in his entourage went Arthur -Henderson, the new Labor member of the Cabinet, and Mr. Runciman, the -President of the Board of Trade (the government department which deals -with industry). The little Welshman drew forth from his inexhaustible -arsenal the weapon he seldom unsheathes in vain--his persuasively silver -tongue. New terms were drawn up between the miners and the colliery -owners. The men got about everything they wanted. "Fill the bunkers," -Lloyd-George cried to them amid their cheers in a farewell speech at -Cardiff. "It means defense. It means protection. It means an -inviolate Britain." The miners went back to work. But peace had been -dearly bought by the Government. It had not dared to enforce the -coercive paragraphs of the vaunted Munitions Law. The Act, it was now -painfully evident, might do very well to discipline a handful of -"shirking-men" at some shell works or shipyard, but to invoke its -machinery to browbeat two hundred thousand organized miners was -manifestly a horse of a different color. And one which the British -Government was not prepared to back. Industrial Conscription was -magnificent in theory. In its first great test in practise it had -proved to be fire with which the authorities preferred not to play. -Some one (I think it was Price Collier) called England the Land of -Compromise. The Welsh miners seem to have shown that he was right. - -Events were not long in forthcoming to demonstrate that neither forceful -persuasion by a popular Cabinet Minister nor "drastic" Acts of -Parliament were in themselves capable of regenerating the British -working man or inspiring him with full and patriotic realization of the -national emergency. Shortly after becoming Minister of Munitions in -May, Lloyd-George began a speech-making tour of the industrial -districts. He pleaded eloquently to Labor to forget its "isms" and its -"rules" and throw the full weight of its Titan strength into the balance -for the winning of the war. He addressed his appeal alike to masters -and men. Passionately he begged both to relegate traditions, suspicions -and prejudices and join hands for the common cause. He did not mince -words as to the national consequences if either of them permitted -ancient antagonisms to restrict their producing power at a moment when -nothing short of the Empire's existence was trembling in the balance. -"Pile up the shells!" was the burden of his plea. Bristol, Birmingham, -Sheffield, Coventry, Leeds, Nottingham, Manchester, all the great -industrial centers of the Kingdom, listened, and promised. By the -beginning of autumn Lloyd-George had pledged nearly one thousand -establishments, hitherto engaged in the peaceful arts, to devote their -plants exclusively to the manufacture of sinews of war, and employers -and workmen passed automatically under the "control" of the Ministry of -Munitions. The country seemed to be yielding effectively to -Lloyd-George's project for "speeding up" war industry. - -Yet, as sporadic announcements in the newspapers presently indicated, -the system was by no means producing desired results. Dogmatic -trade-unionism was dying hard. The Government's call to men and women -to do their "bit" for the war, either by enlisting in the fighting -forces or engaging in munitions work, naturally sent tens of thousands -of people to the factories who never possessed a "union card" in their -lives. Organized Labor was horrified by the deluge of "scabs" thus -created. It saw the results of decades of crusade for "union shops" and -for privilege for skilled hands swept away like chaff in the wind. -Another phenomenon of no less disagreeable omen was making its -appearance. Marvelous American automatic lathes for shell-making were -being installed on a prodigious scale--machinery so simple in -construction that one man, or even a woman or girl, might learn to keep -five lathes running at one time. This conjured up disquieting visions -for the devotees of a system which looks upon arbitrary limitation of -output and minimum employment of maximum numbers of skilled men as an -inalienable heritage of Organized Labor. War might be war, national -existence might be at stake, nothing else might count except victory, to -say nothing of a dozen other shibboleths dinned incessantly into their -ears, but trade-unionists had "rights" and "necessities," too. It had -cost them years of blood and tears, and strikes and lockouts galore, to -enforce them. Was Labor supinely to permit them to be snatched away -bodily under cover of war, which Labor had always opposed? Were sainted -rules about Sunday work and other "overtime," about apprentices, about -female labor, and a dozen other trophies of triumphant trade-unionism to -be renounced? Could Governments, from which hard-won prerogatives had -had to be extorted almost by violence, be trusted voluntarily to restore -them, once Labor had been cowed into surrendering them, and comfortable -precedents established? Was the British proletariat, now only on the -threshold of its liberties, to be hurled back at one fell swoop into the -abyss of inglorious mid-Victorian "slavery"? Let the nation rant itself -blue in the face over Labor's "disgraceful lack of patriotism." Let -Germany find comfort, if it could, in the spectacle of British working -men refusing to relinquish their holiest privileges on the blood-smeared -altar of Militarism. "Patriotism begins at home," said the -trade-unionist. "The Government is looking after its own interests. I -am looking after mine," he explained. - -With such recalcitrant and explosive conditions prevailing, the public -was not surprised, though profoundly chagrined, to learn at the end of -September--I choose the case as typical, and by no means because it was -an isolated instance--that the Liverpool Munitions Tribunal had fined -hundreds of workmen employed by Messrs. Cammell, Laird & Company, one of -the most important firms of armament manufacturers in the country. It -was testified that owing to shirking during the period of the preceding -twenty weeks, there had been a loss of 1,500,000 hours' time. The -evidence is so characteristic that I reproduce it textually: - - -"The average daily number of men employed was 10,349, and the average -number of men out on each day of the week was: Monday, first quarter, -2,135, and the whole day, 1,156; Tuesday, 1,421 and 1,030; Wednesday, -1,439 and 1,231; Thursday, 1,764 and 1,126; Friday, 1,492 and 984; and -Saturday, 1,057 and 1,015. The average number out per day for the whole -period was 1,552 who lost a quarter, and 1,090 losing the whole day. In -other words, fifteen per cent. lost a quarter, and about ten and -one-half per cent. did not go into work at all on every day of the whole -twenty weeks. The loss of working hours on ordinary working days was a -million and a half, and represented a full week's work for nearly thirty -thousand men; or, alternatively, the time lost practically represented a -complete shutting down of the whole establishment for three working -weeks. Neither the men themselves nor their societies could plead -ignorance of what was going on. Frequent appeals had been made to -representative deputations of the men in the works by the managing -director of the company, also to the local representatives of the men's -unions, pointing out this most discreditable state of affairs. Seeing -that the men had proved deaf to all persuasion, and had shown no -improvement in response to appeals either from Ministers of the Crown, -their own trade unions, or their employers, the only course was to -prosecute them before that tribunal." - - -The announcement of the sentences on the shirkers caused an outbreak of -dissatisfaction, and the chairman of the Tribunal was interrupted -several times by the men as he was giving the judgments. Half a dozen -or more of the men all attempting to speak at once caused great -confusion. "There'll be a revolution in this country," cried one, and -such phrases as, "It's time the Germans were here if we are to be -treated like this," "What did South Wales do? Defy them!" "We are not -here as slaves" were shouted from various quarters. The disturbers were -asked to leave the Court. "Let's all go," called one of the men--and -they all went, giving "three cheers for the British workman." - -Labor pleads in extenuation of its seemingly treasonable disregard of -national interests that it is not merely reluctance to yield ground on -fixed trade-union principles which inspires a spirit of revolt in the -"munition areas." It is only fair to record that the attitude of Union -leaders throughout has generally been above reproach. Their counsel to -the men to forget "rules" and give the best that is in them has in many -cases fallen on deaf ears. What particularly gnawed at the men's hearts -was a conviction that they were not getting even an approximately -"square deal" under the abnormal conditions of "war industry." They -insisted that while employers' profits had risen inordinately in almost -every branch--shipping, collieries, the steel and iron trades, and -primarily, of course, in the armaments industries--the wages of the men -who were doing the actual producing lamentably failed to keep step with -the masters' swollen revenue. The men assert, indeed, that such advance -in wages as has taken place does not remotely correspond to the -increased cost of living, which averaged forty per cent. up to the end -of the summer of 1915, with a further rise in almost inevitable -prospect. Labor, in other words, so the working classes claimed, was -being "sweated" in order that the coffers of the "profiteers" might -continue to overflow. If British trade-unionism had an epigrammatist as -inventive as Mr. Bryan, it would no doubt have adopted as its war-time -slogan the aphorism that Capital was determined to press down a crown of -thorns upon Labor's brow, and crucify working mankind upon a cross of -gold. Those, at any rate, were precisely the sentiments which fired -British Labor's soul. - -But if revolt on the old-time issues of output, overtime and Unionism -was bitter and menacing, it was destined to be a mere whisper compared -to Labor's rebellious hostility to Conscription. The "controlled -establishment" system evoked more or less continuous opposition. Almost -every day batches of workmen, ranging from twos and threes to troops of -fifty or a hundred, were dragged before Munition Tribunals, and fined a -week's pay for shirking. In one or two cases they preferred the -martyrdom of imprisonment to money punishment. But on the whole, -notwithstanding the ceaseless howl of Ramsay Macdonald's _Labor Leader_ -and George Lansbury's Socialist _Herald_ against the "tyranny" and -"slavery" of the Munitions Act and the "unchecked piracy of the -employer-profiters," the ambitions of Lloyd-George to "speed up" war -industry were satisfactorily realized. He was able to state that -"taking the figure one as representing the output of shells in -September, 1914, the figure for July, 1915, was fifty times greater. It -was a hundred times greater in August, and thenceforward production -would continue to rise in a surprisingly rapid crescendo." - -By midsummer of 1915 Britain was faced by an emergency not a whit less -urgent than shells. She had effectively organized her facilities for -turning out a maximum of high-explosives. She had now to confront and -solve the insistent problem of manning her decimated armies. Kitchener -and the voluntary system had worked wonders. The actual figures, for -some unaccountably censorious reason, were never disclosed, except in -the case of Ireland, which up to October 1 had furnished 81,000 -recruits; but the authorities allowed to pass uncontradicted the -statement that the United Kingdom and the Colonies between them had -raised a volunteer army of approximately 3,000,000 men. Had it turned -out to be anything except a War of Miscalculations, this gigantic -contribution of British military force might have sufficed, but with -500,000 British casualties after fourteen months of fighting--roundly, -400,000 in France and Flanders and 100,000 in the Dardanelles--and with -the Germans not only not yet expelled from Belgium or France, but in -undisputed possession of Poland and about to pound through Serbia on -"the road to Constantinople, Egypt and India," it was apparent that -probably twice 3,000,000 British soldiers would be required. Two -spectacular attempts to "break through" the wall of concrete and iron -Germany had erected in the West had been made. Both failed, however -gloriously. Neuve Chapelle and Artois inscribed fresh and imperishable -deeds of valor on the scroll of the British army, but each was -strategically valueless. Results attained were frightfully out of -proportion to the price they cost in blood and treasure. - -Succeeding events of the war of stalemate in the West and fiasco in the -Dardanelles--dreary and weary months of fighting accounted "victorious" -if it took three hundred yards of trenches, or a hill, or a cemetery, or -a sugar-factory, or a strip of beach, or if it advanced the British line -a mile and a half over a front of twelve miles--every "gain" entailing a -terrible toll in killed and maimed and fabulous expenditure of -shells--all demonstrated one outstanding, immutable fact: that nothing -but sheer preponderance of man-power weight would or could "cleave the -way to victory." If it cost 25,000 or 30,000 young British lives to win -Neuve Chapelle, probably twice that many to carry out the trial push of -the great offensive at the end of September, and 100,000 casualties to -fail in Gallipoli, what rivers of blood would not have to be spilled -along that once-vaunted "march to Berlin"? - -Britain's volunteers had done nobly. But they manifestly did not do -enough. Mighty as was their response, Britons must yet come, or be -brought, forward in their millions if the Empire was to be saved. The -specter of Conscription became more of a tangible reality from day to -day. Voluntaryism had received a fair and a long and patient trial. It -accomplished far more, probably, than its most sanguine supporters hoped -for. It outstripped any record approximated by Lincoln in our Civil -War, but now, like him, England was plainly compelled to resort to more -heroic measures if the overthrow of Germany was to be anything more than -a pious aspiration. "Mahanism" had given Britannia control of the sea, -but "Moltkeism" was still unbeaten on the Continent. - -[Illustration: Soldiers in the making--11th Battalion cook-house.] - -Now Organized Labor revolted afresh. It would not hear of the -"Prussianization" of England by Conscription. It had already -"surrendered" its "industrial liberty." It did not propose to part with -whatever vestige of "personal freedom" remained. It pilloried -Conscription as "Compulsion" and, as brazenly as they dared, certain -leaders threatened any Government which essayed to fasten it upon the -"British Democracy" with political ruin for itself and gory revolution -for the country. The Conscriptionists were accused of wanting, instead -of an army of volunteer freemen, "a servile, cheap and sweated army." -They aspired to "something which would imperil the civic basis of -British liberty and degrade the nation." Conscription was "desired for -the war and for after the war, in order that its advocates might better -be able to promote their Imperialistic schemes abroad and their class -vanity and political interests at home." In the midst of a war to -"crush militarism," it was now plotted to impose that monster on -Englishmen themselves. Shrieked Bruce Glasier, for example, a paladin of -the Socialist-Labor phalanx: - - -"Compulsion, especially with regard to personal service, to one's choice -of occupation and way of life, is of the essence of slavery and -oppression. Nothing but actual extremity of life and death ought to -justify us in resorting to it even temporarily. No such extremity has -arisen, or is, happily, likely to arise. The voluntary principle has -not failed either in the Army or any other profession. What has failed, -what does fail, is the political policy and administration of the -Government. - -"_Since the days of Feudal slavery in Great Britain no man or woman, -except he be a criminal, a lunatic, or a pauper, has been compelled -personally to serve any master or Government, or engage in any -occupation or task by legal compulsion_. - -"Shall we allow the old-world tyranny to return?" - - -Glasier, unwittingly, tapped the very root of the problem, as far as his -own particular cohorts, "downtrodden labor," are concerned. _The -British masses, in their preponderant majority, have not been brought to -comprehend what Germany's war is--that it involves for Britain "nothing -but actual extremity of life and death._" Although leaders of public -opinion, from the highest to the lowest, never ceased to emphasize the -true inwardness of the struggle, Organized Labor was not convinced that -Voluntary Service was unequal to the emergency. At Bristol, in the -first week of September, 610 delegates to the annual Trade Union -Congress, representing nearly 3,000,000 workers, placed themselves on -record flat-footedly against Conscription. With British military -failure in the war crying to Heaven, the following "anti-Compulsion" -resolutions were adopted: - - -"We, the delegates to this congress, representing nearly three millions -organized workers, record our hearty appreciation of the magnificent -response made to the call for volunteers to fight against the tyranny of -militarism. We emphatically protest against the sinister efforts of a -section of the reactionary press in formulating newspaper policies for -party purposes and attempting to foist on this country Conscription, -which always proves a burden to workers and will divide the nation at a -time when absolute unanimity is essential. - -"No reliable evidence has been produced to show that the voluntary -system of enlistment is not adequate to meet all the empire's -requirements. We believe that all the men necessary can and will be -obtained through a voluntary system properly organized, and we heartily -support and will give every aid to the Government in its present efforts -to secure the men necessary to prosecute the war to a successful issue." - -When the cheers following the unanimous adoption of these resolutions -subsided, Robert Smillie, the miners' leader and one of the most -respected Labor chieftains in Britain, received the heartiest applause -of the whole debate when he rapped out: "Now that this congress has -declared, on behalf of organized labor, that it is against Conscription, -it will be the duty of organized labor to prevent Conscription taking -place." - -It was not long after the Bristol Trade Union Congress defied the -Government to establish Conscription that Vernon Hartshorn, the -Socialist miners' leader, declaimed in the _Christian Commonwealth_ that -"a golden opportunity for Labor" had arrived, asked "whether -trade-unions shall now not be successfully recognized as the controlling -authority in a new industrial democracy," and set up "the irresistible -claim of Labor to control its own destinies and those of the country." -The Bristol and Hartshorn manifestoes were followed by the most -extraordinary outburst of all--the formal declaration on the official -premises of the British House of Commons by J. H. Thomas, a Member of -Parliament for Derby and Organizing Secretary of the Amalgamated Society -of Railway Workmen, that if the Government attempted to enforce -Conscription, 3,000,000 employees of the national transportation lines -of the country would not shrink from precipitating "industrial -revolution!" - -Interesting to the foreign observer as are all these manifestations of -the British masses' opposition to war-time "control" and universal -military service, the pathological causes of it are no less absorbing. -They are not, in my judgment, far to seek. I thought I gained a -composite glimpse of them one day at Shepherd's Bush, by no means the -most squalid section of London, for it lies in the west, far from the -putrid east. I had gone to watch a great "recruiting-rally"--an attempt -to inject some patriotism into regions where it was sadly lacking. I -found myself in the midst of a huge typically lower-class and lower -middle-class multitude. Scattered throughout it were countless hundreds -of what should have been young men fit for military service. It was for -the most part a motley throng of blear-eyed men and women of all sorts, -sizes and conditions of mental and physical deterioration. Nearly -everybody, particularly children, was unkempt and seemed underfed. In -the wide-open doors of odoriferous saloons stood hatless, slovenly -females, balancing with one hand a half-emptied mug of beer, while the -other shepherded a cluster of wretched youngsters with dirty faces, -tattered clothing and shredded shoes. Collarless men slouched along, -filthy of attire and language alike. The remarks one overheard, as the -troops trudged by and the bands blared _Rule, Britannia_, were usually -purely ribald, and the cheering, when a taxi full of wounded Tommies, -shoved into the procession to lend corroborative detail to what Sir W. -S. Gilbert would have called an otherwise bald and unconvincing -spectacle, was desultory and short-lived. The parade had been assigned -a line of march through several miles of district precisely like -Shepherd's Bush. I could hardly imagine that the scenes anywhere were -considerably different from those of which I was an astonished and -chagrined witness. There were very few recruits. - -I could not resist a reminiscent soliloquy. I had stood in the midst of -German crowds in Berlin and elsewhere times without number. But I was -quite sure that nowhere in the Fatherland had I ever been in contact -with such concentrated, omnipresent, apparently inconquerable squalor -and proletarian apathy. It was manifestly not this stratum of English -society which was to perpetuate Britannia's rule of the waves. -Lamentably little of the "bulldog breed" was visible here. It was more -like the starved cur type. Starved! That was the word. Starved for -generations of the nourishment on which health, education, ideals and -patriotism must be developed, if they are to stand the test in the hour -of supreme trial! Why, I asked myself, was such a disheartening picture -as good as physically impossible in Berlin or Hamburg or Düsseldorf or -Breslau? I may be wrong, but the answer seemed to me to be that -paternalistic Government in Germany had produced a race of men and women -who, because better educated, better housed, better fed and generally -better cared for--even under the relentless jackboot of -Militarism--looked upon a war for national existence through entirely -different-colored spectacles than this slipshod composite of British -illiteracy and nonchalance. I seriously doubted if Shepherd's Bush -understood the meaning of Patriotism as the Germans know it; understood -that _Service_ and _Sacrifice_ are necessary in the hour of the nation's -jeopardy, and, because necessary, must be lavishly, unquestioningly -rendered. I found myself excusing the British proletariat. I felt that -they were what they were, and acting as they were, or, rather, failing -to act as they ought, because _they knew no better_. Patriotism is not -altogether instinct. It is largely a cultivated virtue. That is why we -teach immigrant children from Russia and Italy and Hungary to sing "My -Country, 'Tis of Thee" as the rudiment of their American schooling. -Education has been compulsory in Britain for many years, but drink has -been traditionally universal, and housing of the poor and the working -classes was only in comparatively recent years deemed a subject worthy -of vast national effort. Public hygiene is no longer a neglected theme, -and playgrounds and parks are numerous. But illiteracy, intemperance -and disease can not be eradicated in a generation. Masses which have -for decades been neglected and held in subjection and contempt by an -unrelenting class-distinction system heavily charged with arrant -snobbishness can not be churned, by the turning of a crank, into a -community of enlightened, high-minded or able-bodied patriots and -war-makers. Britain has sown the wind. She is reaping the whirlwind. -That has been said before, but never has it applied with such grim -significance as at this hour. - -Recruiting "rallies," recruiting advertisements, reproaches of the -"slacker" and the "shirker" in the press, on the platform, in the parks -and from the pulpit, have signally failed to shame lower-class Britain -into doing its duty as the upper and middle classes have so gloriously -done. In consequence, the Voluntary system is on its last legs. Early -in October Lord Kitchener appointed Lord Derby "Director of Recruiting." -In assuming the thankless job, Derby said he felt like taking over the -receivership of a bankrupt concern. He proposed granting Voluntaryism a -six weeks' respite. He would give the stay-at-homes one more chance. -The Government (which enacted the National Register for the -purpose--hated Prussian system which card-indexed every male and female -in the realm between fifteen and fifty-five!) knew exactly who and where -they were. "Push and Go," said one of the last-ditch poster appeals, -"But It's Better to Go than Be Pushed." Lord Derby intimated that -"pushing" would set in on December 1. It was estimated that, by hook or -crook, not less than thirty thousand fresh men a week would be needed to -keep the British armies in Europe and Africa at effective strength in -1916, and, if they did not come forward voluntarily, Kitchener was -determined to "fetch" them. That means Conscription. Northcliffe calls -it National Service. Shepherd's Bush calls it National Servility. If -Labor means what it says, "Compulsion" will not be established until -Trafalgar Square and Whitechapel, Clydebank and South Wales, have run -red with the organized proletariat's "freeman" blood. On Britain's -recreant past, then, rather than on her embattled present, will lie, in -my judgment, the real responsibility for that dread triumph of ignorance -and indolence over the elementary dictates of patriotism and -self-preservation. - -If I have emphasized British Labor's influence in blocking National -Service, I must, in all fairness, point out that brows not accustomed to -sweat and hands never grimy from toil have joined their frowns and their -strength with Trade-Unionism and Socialism against Conscription. The -professional pacifists, the "anti-militarists," the statesmen and the -newspapers which for years prior to 1914, and even during the weeks -immediately preceding August of that year, ridiculed the idea of "war -with Germany," were all mobilized against the revolutionary idea of -converting able-bodied Britons by law into defenders of the realm. From -these quarters the men who have dared to advocate Conscription have been -besmirched with abuse no less torrential than that which was heaped upon -them at the Trade-Union Congress in Bristol or from week to week in the -columns of Socialist-Labor organs. It will not be only certain famous -proletariat leaders who prevented Britain from rising in the great war -to her full military stature--if prevented she be--but the party-hack -editors, authors and anything-for-office politicians who preferred the -fetish of "our unenslaved Democracy" and "Voluntaryism" to the system -under which _every other single one of Britain's Allies_ is fighting and -under which, if the opinion of professional soldiers is to be trusted, -victory alone can be made to perch on the Union Jack. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - THE EMPIRE OF HATE - - -Though the end of the carnage is not even approximately in sight, a -synoptic view of Germany in war-time is feasible to a more comprehensive -extent than is possible in Britain. Armageddon found the Fatherland -completely caparisoned for war, with her people so steeped in discipline -that it was the merest formality to harness their peace-time habits to -Mars' Juggernaut and drive the entire nation to battle as one would a -well-trained team. "Team-work," in fact, exactly describes Germany's -war-time performances. They are achievements in national unison without -parallel in history. Britain, on the other hand, having been overtaken -by war, except for her navy, in a state of naked unpreparedness, was -plunged forthwith into the melting-pot. Traditions, customs, -institutions, hobbies, prejudices, fetishes, even cherished laws, had to -be abandoned, upset or reconstructed to fit a world of iron conditions -unsuited to a dreamland of comfortable theories. The remaking of -Britain, after sixteen months of war, is not yet ended. It has, indeed, -hardly commenced. The time to write an accurate history of these isles -during the Great Test will come not when peace is signed, but perhaps a -decade later, when the New England will have begun to assume, in misty -outline at least, the physical, moral and intellectual dimensions in -which war, with its scars and its cleansings, left her. - -Organized for war, body and soul, as Germany has been for generation -upon generation, and never more so, of course, than in the living -generation, the country slid into the bloody groove as neatly as if it -had never had its being elsewhere. The prospect of "starvation," for -instance, quite apart from the fact that it was a German-invented bogy -trotted out to deceive the enemy and extort the commiseration of -neutrals, never seriously disturbed the Germans' equanimity, for from -the cradle up frugality has been instilled in them as a virtue sister to -patriotism. No people in the world could overnight descend to a war -standard of living so rapidly as the Germans. Accustomed to the -affluence of sudden prosperity as the nation, as a whole, was, it had -yet only to return to familiar inculcated habits, when the Kaiser -called. The grand German bluff of the first year of the war was the -introduction of the bread-ticket ration system. How the grain-shippers -of Chicago and Duluth must have chuckled over it, when they recalled the -gigantic advance purchases of wheat made for German and Austrian account -in May, 1914--_three full months before_ "the Russian mobilization -menace!" Germany can never be starved, and she knows it. Von Tirpitz -knew it when he proclaimed submarine piracy as a "reprisal" for British -"attempts to starve us out." The grip of the British Fleet around -Germany's neck has inconvenienced the Germans, but it can never cause -them to famish. The "starvation" myth which the German propagandists in -the United States so assiduously circulated was devised, purely and -simply, for the purpose of arousing the compassion of the -generous-hearted American people, in the hope that our most sentimental -of governments would intervene, in humanity's name, to lift from -Germany's throat a yoke which she herself was powerless to remove. That -is the long and short of the "starvation" story. - -As inborn and cultivated habits of frugality and thrift enabled the -introduction of the bread-ticket without marked disturbance to normal -German life, so the nation resorted willingly and easily to all the -other new conditions which war imposed. A people goose-stepped and -policed from the nursery to the grave, bred in docility, with wills of -their own eternally broken before they have left the _Kinderstube_, with -initiative and self-reliance knocked out of them with the rod at home -and in school, and with blind unyielding subordination to discipline -literally pounded into their bones in barracks, provides no astonishing -spectacle in making war, when war comes, as one man obeying one supreme -will. War is the _ultima ratio_, indeed, which this national system of -self-suppression has in mind. The surprising thing is not that the -world has witnessed so colossal an exhibition of team-work in Germany. -The unexpected would have been if Germany had given any other account of -herself. When we speak, as we all do, and especially the English, of -"Germany's years of preparation," we should eliminate the notion that -these preparations were confined to shells, guns, fortifications, -battleships and legions. No single other "preparation" of the German -war gods measured up, in my judgment, to the unseen and unnoticed, yet -all-engulfing, decade-old, national scheme of molding the minds of men, -women, children and babes along the line of unresisting, complete -slavery to Superiority, uniformed as the State. When you dilute this -super-subjugation with the wine of true patriotism which, despite their -Socialism, their police, their burdensome taxes, their goose-step, their -powerless parliaments and all the other concomitants of an autocratic -monarchy, flows red and joyously through the soul of the Germans, you -secure a spiritual admixture which approaches invincibility. You -discover the ingredients of what Lloyd-George christened the -"potato-bread spirit," which he truly described as a greater danger for -Germany's enemies than Hindenburg's strategy. The former will survive -long after the latter has broken down. - -For a full year, interrupted only by six weeks in the United States at -the end of the winter of 1914-15, I have kept in as close touch with -Germany in war-time as if I were at my old lookout in the -Friedrichstrasse. My professional task in London all that time has been -to study the German Press. Day in and day out I have done so. I have -read the Government-controlled _Lokal-Anzeiger_, the radical _Berliner -Tageblatt_, the venerable _Vossische Zeitung_, Count Reventlow's organ -of Frightfulness, the _Deutsche Tageszeitung_, the Pan-German _Tägliche -Rundschau_, the Thunderer of Prussian conservatism, the _Kreuz-Zeitung_, -and Maximilian Harden's vitriolic _Zukunft_. The voice of paralyzed -Hamburg has come to me morning and night through the malevolent -_Hamburger Nachrichten_ and _Fremdenblatt_. _Vorwärts_ has kept me -informed of German Socialism's invertebrate vagaries. The cultured -_Cologne Gazette_, the property of Doctor Neven-Dumont, whose wife is -half-English and whose son is proud of his Oxford degree, and yet has -almost led the German Press in the violence of its Anglophobism, has -told me what semi-official Germany wanted the world to believe was its -views from hour to hour. In the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ I have been able -to glean the news and opinion of the great German financial and -commercial classes for which it speaks. Catholic Bavaria, the land of -Crown Prince "Rupprecht, the Bloody," has been interpreted to me by the -_Munich Neueste Nachrichten_. The _Dresdner Anzeiger_ has mirrored -Saxony day by day. And, as the _Stimmung_ of no country in the world is -so faithfully reproduced by its comic press as is opinion in Germany, my -readings have been amplified, as well as lightened, by heartlessly -ironic _Simplicissimus_, artistic _Jugend, Fliegende Blätter_ and -_Lustige Blätter_. My German literary diet, which was ruining my -eye-sight, has been almost more opulent than when in Berlin, has finally -been enriched from week to week by the incessant grist of pamphlets and -booklets which has poured from the German mill even in more copious and -overwhelming measure than in peace-times. If the printed word is the -index of a nation's thought, little of moment in Germany since August, -1914, has escaped me. I have had the inestimable advantage of being -able to absorb it in the light of its relationship to the situation -outside of Germany--an opportunity of which the Germans themselves, -though I would not try to make them believe it, have been cruelly -deprived. - -Telescopic observation of Germany, as reflected by its press, a little -knowledge of what Doctor Münsterberg would call the Fatherland's -"psychology," and the actual deeds of the German army, navy and -Government have provided me, I think I may make so bold as to say, with -a fairly complete and accurate picture. Germany, thus visualized, -stands out to me in bold, clear-cut relief. It is a strange and -terrible composite of forces generally considered incongruous and -mutually destructive--Efficiency, Malice and Intolerance. The world -ought to have known that in war Germany would reveal titanic powers of -scientific organization. It did not expect to find her an Empire of -Hate. It hardly imagined that the land of Goethe and Wagner, Koch, -Behring and Ehrlich, Siemens, Rathenau and Ballin, Hauptmann, Strauss -and Reinhardt, Eucken, Haeckel and Harnack, could be turned even by the -devouring blasts of war into a community capable of elevating to the -dignity of a national anthem such a ferocious song as Lissauer's _Hymn -of Hate Against England_, whose soul is best breathed by its closing -stanza: - - "Take you the folk of the Earth in pay, - With bars of gold your ramparts lay, - Bedeck the ocean with bow on bow, - Ye reckon well, but not well enough now. - French and Russian, they matter not, - A blow for a blow, a shot for a shot, - We fight the battle with bronze and steel, - And the time that is coming Peace will seal. - You will we hate with a lasting hate, - We will never forego our hate, - Hate by water and hate by land, - Hate of the head and hate of the hand, - Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown, - Hate of seventy millions, choking down. - We love as one, we hate as one, - We have one foe, and one alone-- - ENGLAND!" - - -Even Barbara Henderson's brilliant translation of this epic of spleen, -the first version of which to be published in Great Britain it was my -privilege to reprint in _The Daily Mail_ from the columns of the _New -York Times_, fails to do justice to the innate rancor and gall of -Lissauer's original verses. Americans who visited Germany during the -war were unanimous in agreeing that no rendering of the _Hymn of Hate_ -in English could possibly interpret its consuming spirit. You had to -hear it rasped with the ferocity of snarling, guttural German, they -would say, to gain even an approximate idea of its power. You had to -watch a man or woman recitationist or singer, for it was set to music, -too, bawl it out, in a crescendo of passionate fury as the final word of -each stanza, _England!_ was reached. You had to sit in the midst of a -theater, café or music-hall audience, or even in a drawing-room, and -note all around you the frenzied countenances, the clenched fists, the -whole enraged being, of men, women and children, to know how Lissauer's -ballad of gall had burnt itself into a people's soul. There have been -more or less sincere efforts in Germany to banish the _Hymn of Hate_. -Lissauer having previously received the Iron Cross for poetic gallantry, -and from the pulpit and the school rostrum the unrighteousness of hate -had been sanctimoniously proclaimed. But Lissauer only put into verse -the spirit which maddened Berlin on the night of August 4, 1914, which -grew in intensity as the magnitude of British intervention in the war -slowly dawned, and which, surface manifestations to the contrary -notwithstanding, lingers deep and ineffaceable in the German breast, and -will remain there, barring a miracle, for generations after the war is -over. - -While the _Hymn of Hate_ was at the zenith of its glory, some genius -whose name, unfortunately, will be lost to posterity, invented _Gott -strafe England!_ (God punish England) as the most patriotic form of -greeting which one German could exchange with another. Friends meeting -in the suburban trains or street-cars, or in the streets, no longer -lifted their hats as usual and said _Guten Morgen_. They shook hands -solemnly and exclaimed _Gott strafe England_! When they parted at -night, it was not _Guten Abend_, but _Gott strafe England_! Then they -began stamping it--with a rubber-stamp which was sold by the thousand -for the purpose--on their letters to correspondents at home and abroad. -It was even adopted, now and then, as an epitaph for a fallen soldier, -whose relatives would end up the customary obituary in the advertising -columns of the newspapers with _Gott strafe England_. Now postcards -blossomed forth with the new national motto. Scarf-pins made their -appearance in the windows of cheap-jewelry stores, inscribed _Gott -strafe England_! The legend was reproduced in a score of different -designs on cuff-links, brooches, and even wedding-rings, while hardly a -schoolchild was without a badge or button emblazoned with the -Fatherland's holiest war prayer. Handkerchiefs were embroidered with -it, pocket-knives had it enameled on their handles, and many a -_Liebesgabe_ to a dear one in the trenches went forth with a pair of -black-white-red braces imprinted _Gott strafe England_! On a medal -which doubtless decorated thousands of German breasts--a sample reached -England--was engraved: - - -"Give us this day our daily bread; England -would take it from us. God punish her!" - - -Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, who was beaten by Sir John French's -"contemptible little army" at Neuve Chapelle and Artois, placed Royal -approval on the _Gott strafe England_ cult in his notorious battle-order -in the winter campaign to "annihilate the British arch-foe in front of -us at any and all cost." - -Englishmen, and especially English soldiers, perhaps measured the _Gott -strafe England_ sentiment at below its real value as a German fighting -asset when they decided to treat it as a joke. That was the spirit, at -any rate, which animated a group of young Eton men at the front, who -sent a postcard to the Headmaster of their historic school rival -reading: _Gott strafe Harrow_! And on April Fool's day British Tommies -across a certain meadow of death in Flanders expelled from a -mine-thrower something which looked murderously like a bomb. When it -bounced in front of the German lines, and bounced again, without -exploding, a "Boche" ventured out of the trenches and picked it up. He -found it was a football, and on it was inscribed: - - April Fool! - _Gott strafe England!_ - - -[Illustration: "A PRUSSIAN HOUSEHOLD AT THEIR MORNING HATE--From _London -Punch_"] - -Mr. Punch and his lesser _confrères_ in British humor have almost lived -through the war on _Gott strafe England_! The sentiment has not struck -terror into John Bull's heart, but it has very materially added to his -war-time gaiety. - -Next to the Hate epidemic, the mystifying account of themselves which -the German Social Democrats have given during the war stands out as the -main phenomenon. I have asked myself more than once what might have -been if Bebel, the brains, or Singer, the fists, of the old-time -Socialistic movement had been alive in August, 1914. Certainly the -utter failure of the Socialists to hamper the operation of the German -war-machine will remain forever one of the amazing episodes of the war. -It will rank, of course, also, as one of the blazing miscalculations of -the Fatherland's enemies. It is true that Bebel, the long-time autocrat -of the German "Reds," proclaimed often enough that when Germany was in -peril, he and his Genossen would shoulder the musket with a will. Yet -the suspicion always lurked that when the German War Party's time came -and it essayed to drag the German people across the Rubicon, the Social -Democracy, with 4,250,000 voters, 111 members of parliament and German -trades-unionism almost solidly behind it, would be found standing like -an insuperable barrier against the powers of aggression. There had been -more than one hint that working-class Germany, in that hour, would not -shrink from utilizing the potent weapon of the General Strike to stay -the hand of the war zealots. Opinion on that score amounted to almost -positive conviction in non-Socialistic Germany and throughout Europe, in -case the test were to be forced by a German war of manifestly -provocative character. It therefore was of prime importance to the -clique which engineered the war that the Social Democracy be made to -believe, forthwith and implicitly, that the impending conflict was a -"defensive war," to which Socialist leaders had always pledged the -proletariat's unswerving support. Categorical and lachrymose assurances -to that effect were accordingly given to the Social Democratic group of -the Reichstag by the Imperial Chancellor in the confidential conferences -with the parties, which preceded the public session of the House on -August 4, 1914. The once-despised "Reds," so often denounced by William -II as "men without a country," but whose votes in the national -legislature were now so essential to the show of Imperial unity with -which Germany desired to go to war, were supplied with ample "evidence" -that Germany's cause was "just." She had been "fallen upon" by -ruthless, envious enemies, the struggle about to begin would be waged by -the Fatherland in "defense" of its holiest national interests, and the -support of all classes was essential to the waging of the fight with -which nothing short of "the Empire's existence" was was bound up. The -Socialists listened, patriotically, to this siren song. They believed -its tale of woe. They bade the Chancellor to be assured that they would -not be found wanting in Germany's moment of peril. And a few hours -later Herr Haase, the chairman of the party, was on his feet in the -Reichstag, uttering glittering platitudes about Socialism's -constitutional abhorrence of war and all its works, but proclaiming that -the party's full strength and support were at the Government's disposal -for the purpose of repelling the invader! _Sic transit gloria mundi!_ -August Bebel might well have remarked, could his shade have hovered over -this abject surrender to Mars by his supine heirs of the fundamental -principles to which he had consecrated a life-time. - -From that moment forth the Kaiser needed to give himself no concern as -to "the internal foe," the nickname of reproach always saddled on the -Social Democracy by the Military Autocracy. The wing-clipped "Reds" -were even allowed a certain latitude of free speech and thought about -the war. They were permitted to indulge in their favorite academic -discussions about the propriety of Socialist votes for war credits, and -even Haase himself, having gradually come to realize that the Kaiser and -Bethmann Hollweg had sold the Social Democracy a political gold brick, -was not locked up for sedition for issuing, together with two -fellow-leaders, Bernstein and Kautsky, a courageous manifesto against -support of limitless war grants. _Vorwärts_, the Socialist organ, and -other party newspapers were from time to time suppressed by the military -censor for airing war opinions too freely, but as successive war -measures were presented for the approval of the Reichstag, a safe -majority of Socialist votes was on each occasion cast in their favor. -The myth of a "war of defense" was never broken down. The King of -Bavaria and the National Liberal Party gave the game away during the -spring and summer of 1915, by blustering about the necessity for -sweeping "rectifications of our frontiers," or, in other words, -wholesale annexation of conquered territory, but Germany's war was well -into its second year finding the Social Democracy, for the purposes and -needs of the Government at least, entirely harmless. Food shortage and -high prices churned proletariat Germany into growing discontent, as the -war proceeded. Butter and meat riots have occurred in Berlin, and there -have been ominous suggestions that the military authorities are alive to -the possibility of "revolutionary" manifestations. But the day of -Germany's Commune is not yet. No better evidence of the completeness -with which the Socialist party was hypnotized from the outset could have -been supplied than by the action of Doctor Ludwig Frank, one of its -brilliant young leaders, in volunteering for military service. Frank -fell in the earliest fighting in France, in August, 1914, and now fills -a hero's grave. A Jewish lawyer in Baden, he was commonly looked upon -as the future chieftain of Social Democracy. The war interfered with a -cherished plan of his--to visit and lecture in the United States--and I -suppose the last interview he ever gave was one I had with him, in which -he spoke with enthusiasm of the American impressions he hoped to gather. -He was keenly interested in the corporation problem, recognized that it -contained evils with which Germany before long would have to cope, and -wanted to equip himself with first-hand knowledge of its ramifications -in the home of its highest development. Frank was not a fire-eating -German Social Democrat. He belonged to the moderate or "revisionist" -wing of the party. He was obsessed with no illusions as to the future -possibilities of Socialism in Germany and acknowledged that sane -democrats had long since abandoned hope of accomplishing anything more -than the establishment of a truly constitutional monarchy and -Parliamentary government. It is a thousand pities that Ludwig Frank has -not been spared to play his capable part in the political reconstruction -of Germany which, win or lose, is almost inevitably certain to follow -the war. Doctor Karl Liebknecht, that stormy petrel of German -Socialism, remained the one man to utter anti-war sentiment day in and -day out. Even the Government's action in sticking him into field-gray -and dispatching him to the front for intermittent service failed to -check the flow of his invective. Liebknecht represents the Imperial -borough of Potsdam, of all places in the world, in the German -Parliament, but, though he has talked incessantly and voted -rebelliously, the voice of the representative of the Kaiser's -congressional district was destined to remain as one crying in the -wilderness. - -I have said that the triumphs of Germany behind the firing-line--the -fortitude with which she has borne her hideous losses in life, the -magnificently effective demonstration of unity, economy, self-sacrifice, -industrial and financial organization, and adaptability to all the -domestic conditions of war--were only things which those of us who knew -the Germans expected to come to pass. They were as inevitable, in their -paternalized State, the Empire of System, as were the early cannon-ball -successes of the German army. We who were aware, as eye-witnesses, of -Germany's prodigious preparations for "the Day," never doubted that, -having chosen her own moment for launching her thunderbolts, they would -accomplish precisely the staggering blows and strangle-holds which -August and September, 1914, brought forth. Although (including myself) -there was not one man in ten thousand in Berlin who knew who Hindenburg -was--I have merely a faint recollection of having once read his name as -an army commander in _Kaiser Maneuvers_--a good many of us had an -abiding impression that the Russian army was no match for the German war -machine, however easily the Czar might roll up the Austrians. The -victories of the German armies in the war are no surprise to the German -people. They have been raised in the belief that their military power -was invincible, even against a world of foes. Events in the first year -and a half of the war, even though Paris and Calais remained untaken, -were certainly such as to convince Germans that their traditional and -child-like confidence in their armed prowess was justified. - -But in addition to Hate and Socialist impotence, two things which -astounded those who knew and admired the German people, were their -callousness toward the deeds which have been committed by their army and -navy and their savage intolerance of any other point of view except -their own. I am not one of those who believe that all Germans have -cloven hoofs. Bitterly as I oppose their cause in this war and fully as -I hold their War Party responsible for the war, I am not prepared to -believe that the Germans are either a decadent or a lost race. What I -do believe is that the war has, temporarily at least, annihilated the -moral qualities of the Germans and dragged them from the high estate of -ethical and discriminating intelligence in which they lived in -antebellum times. The Germans of Louvain, of the _Lusitania_, -asphyxiating gas, liquid fire, submarine piracy, airship assassination -and General Frightfulness are not the Germans among whom I spent -thirteen happy, fruitful years. They are not the Germans whose main -concern, as it is that of the average run of men and women in other -climes, was to prosper, raise families, educate children, live -comfortably, acquire a competence and enjoy life generally. These -Germans no longer exist. They have been succeeded by a race of -war-maddened Germans, who were told by their Imperial Chancellor that -"necessity knows no law," that treaties are "scraps of paper," and who -have been made to believe that, in war, there is but one thing to -do--"to hack our way through"--and that, as Bismarck and the German War -Book said, the enemy must be left with nothing except eyes to weep with. -The Germans have been steeped in all this by their overlords, living and -dead, and, being children of discipline, they have looked with -unmoistened eye upon all and sundry done in the holy name of these -bedrock German principles. - -The Fatherland's heartlessness toward such events as the rape of Belgium -becomes less inexplicable when one recalls the cult of brutality which -pursues the German from the nursery upward. As a child in swaddling -clothes, he is taught that he has no right to a will of his own, and if -he attempts to cultivate one, it is promptly beaten out of him. I -recall, with more amusement than the episode inspired in me at the time, -the struggle we had with our beloved family physician in Berlin, Doctor -Keiler, to allow us to bring up our three or four-year-old son as a boy -and not as a machine. "_Das Kind darf keinen Willen hoben!_" I -remember dear old Keiler shrieking in Wilmersdorf more than once, as he -labored in vain to convince us that if Frightfulness was necessary to -break the youngster's inborn initiative and self-reliance, we must not -shrink from resorting to it. And when the German escapes the -_Kinderstube_ with its unfailing rod and enters _Gymnasium_, he is once -more under the cruel lash of Efficiency, which drives scores of lads to -suicide at each recurring Easter-time because they have failed in -examinations for the higher grade, notwithstanding a term's unceasing -hounding by their drill-sergeant of a teacher and class-room and home -cramming which have kept his frame thin and his cheek pallid. A whole -literature has come into existence in opposition to the intellectual -brutality to which German schoolboys between the ages of eight and -sixteen are subjected, but the consensus of opinion is that the system's -advantages outweigh its deficiencies, and that youthful suicides are -part of the price the Fatherland must pay for what Professor Lasson of -Berlin calls its "cultural superiority" over the rest of mankind. - -Thrashed in the nursery, tormented in school, the German lad must then -face a period of bullying in barracks, for, if he has managed to survive -his _Gymnasia_ years in health, he will enter the army. It is not -necessary in this narrative to dilate upon the cruelties committed in -German barracks in the sacrosanct name of Discipline and Thoroughness. -There is a literature in Germany on that subject, too, and the penal -records of the military and civil courts comprise the bulk of it. It is -only with the lesson of the system with which we need to concern -ourselves here; and that is, that the German man who emerges from the -army comes out with notions about the efficacy and justifiability of -brute force and brutality which are certain, under the red license which -war confers, to find expression in terrible deeds. In other words, a -German who has himself perhaps been assaulted by his regimental sergeant -on scores of occasions (such cases are plentiful), who has seen the -bloody saber-duel elevated in his university days to the level of the -manliest art, who has throughout his life been a supine victim of police -violence, who holds womankind in semi-contempt, who thinks it -sportsmanlike to shoot birds alight, who rejoices in his prowess as a -slaughterer of wild game, who beats his horses, who is as unfamiliar -with the ethics of sport and play as he is with the lingo of a Choctaw -dialect--such a man, I say, is bound, when he is sent forth with his -Kaiser's mandate to "hack his way through," to stagger humanity as the -Germans have never ceased to stagger it on land, on sea and in the air -since August, 1914. Given a nation of non-combatants who have been -instructed to believe that these things _must_ be because otherwise -their existence will be imperiled, and you have to do with a community -which, however delightful its qualities as individuals, is no longer -capable of measuring right and wrong, by normal standards and which is -ready to tolerate any and everything, as long as it is part and parcel -of the general scheme to "preserve the Fatherland." If one considers -all these things, which I set down in no spirit of venom, but purely in -an attempt to diagnose German war callousness, one will begin to be able -to understand why German sensibilities remain unshocked in the presence -of things which have horrified civilization. One's understanding will -be complete if it is remembered that not one in a million Germans -believes that these things have happened at all! - -Philosophy, logic, metaphysics and psychology are cultivated sciences in -Germany. It is even sometimes claimed--in Berlin and in certain regions -of Harvard--that they were "made in Germany." Yet as applied sciences -they have given a woefully sorry exhibition of themselves in the -Fatherland during the war. They have, as a matter of fact, entirely -disappeared. They have been supplanted by a new doctrine, for which the -Germans themselves have an old and incomparable word--_Rechthaberei_. I -learned that precious term from an American colleague in Berlin, a South -Carolinian and profound student of German character named William C. -Dreher. Dreher, who is an able journalist specializing in economics, -has held forth to me on countless occasions about "Prussian -_Rechthaberei_"--the unquenchable conviction of the average Teuton that -he not only is "right" about everything, but that everybody else whom he -permits to have a thought or a word on the same subject is essentially, -inherently and incorrigibly "wrong." I can hardly credit the report -that Dreher himself has fallen a victim to the insidious influence of -_Rechthaberei_. It is something that presupposes omniscience and mental -aristocracy on the part of the propounder of a given theory, and -senility or utterly misguided stubbornness on the part of the opponent. -Germany has wallowed in _Rechthaberei_ since August 1, 1914. It has -sucked into the mire of intolerance everybody who has dared to cherish a -contrary view. It has refused the right of independence of thought to -every living soul, unless that thought is pro-German. It has swallowed -whole anything the German Government and its muzzled press have said, -and it has condemned as criminal falsehood anything published in enemy -countries. It allows British, French and Russian newspapers, in a lordly -way, to circulate freely in Germany, as of yore, thumping its chest and -saying "We are not afraid of the truth"--but only after having drilled -the country into believing that _nothing_ printed abroad about the war -is or can be true! So the German who finds _The Daily Mail_ or the _New -York Times_ on its accustomed file at his favorite café, just as he used -to do in peace days, _knows in advance_ that he is to read "lies," and -he digests them, leaving his patriotism unpolluted. - -"Mass-suggestion" has thus worked wonders in War Germany. It has driven -me for example--I hope not forever--from the ranks of my oldest and best -friends in Germany--Americans, as well as Germans. It impelled my wife's -dearest friend, the Philadelphia-born wife of a German, to write a -letter early in the war, formally "canceling" the friendship, because -"your husband, instead of choosing to identify himself with an honest -cause, has thrown in his lot with England, and, with her, will share the -downfall toward which that nation is headed." That would be funny, if -it were not so tragically pathetic. I hear that a great many good -people in Berlin, wasting upon me breath and choleric energy which -deserved to be spent on a far worthier object, fairly splutter when they -hear or read my name. I have been the target of absurd and filthy -personal abuse in the German press. I have won undying execration, for -I have dared, in a most un-German way, to have a view of my own on the -question which is agitating men's minds and searching their hearts as -never was done before. - -Yet all the millstones of hate and intolerance are not preventing the -Germans from conducting a fight which challenges, in its efficiency, -barring its inhuman aspects, the admiration of foe and neutral the world -over. They are, indeed, a nation in arms. Their Spartan qualities -behind the front, their contempt of death in the enemy's fire, will not -easily be conquered. Exhaustion, economic and human, must tell against -them in the long run, though the process of attrition will be vastly -slower, I fancy, than armchair war critics in England think. The -Germans will fight to the last man and the last pfennig, as I know them, -and when they are beaten, they will furl their tattered standards after -a combat which, stripped of its horrors, will yet have been marked by -deeds of patriotism, courage and glory fit to take their place alongside -the heroic traditions of mankind. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - THE NEW ENGLAND - - -Rome was not built in a day, but England has been made over in a year. -Personal liberty is gone. A free press no longer exists. Extravagance -is "bad form." Economy has become respectable. Dukes' sons and cooks' -sons are "pals." Drunkenness is disappearing. Conscription looms on -the horizon. The Irish are loyal. Suffragettes are making shells and -bandaging wounds instead of smashing windows and going to jail. Pride -is humbled, though not crushed. Still ringed by Kipling's "leaden -seas," Britain is no longer an island, for Zeppelins have maimed and -killed and wrecked in the heart of London. Tolerance is a lost art. -British have learned to hate. The link-boy has come back into his own; -the streets at night, that Admiral Sir Percy Scott, defender of London -by air, may blind the "sky-Huns," recall the gloom of the Cimmerian -Regency. Though Waterloo was won a hundred years ago, a terror worse -than the Napoleonic scourge has overtaken the descendants of Nelson and -Wellington. Britannia rules the waves, but the blood of a half million -of her best sons fertilizes the soil of France, Belgium, Turkey, Serbia -and Africa; and the flow is far from checked. The "shopkeeper of the -world" has become a nation in arms. Only one phase of its multifarious -life, immutable as the sphinx, has survived the crucible of war in -pristine glory--British calm. Ships may sink, men may fall, bombs may -annihilate and treasure be sapped, but British imperturbability, like -Time itself, pursues the even tenor of its way, Himalayan in its -imperviousness. - -Assuredly it has been for no lack of cause that England has ridden the -sea of Armageddon without capsizing. Squalls, typhoons, storms and -barometric disturbances of every form of violence have beset her from -the outset of the voyage. But though there has been tempest, there is -no shipwreck. She enters upon another lap of a seemingly endless -journey, battered indeed, but keel down and full steam ahead. It is -still night. Stokers and crew, nor even the captains and commodores, -are not a completely united band, but their differences concern only the -methods of cleaving through darkness to the port, to gain which, at any -cost, all are grimly determined. Failure to reach the waters of their -desire as soon as the unthinking majority hoped and believed would be -possible has sobered the vision and intensified the resolve of crew and -commanders alike. It has not reconciled their antagonisms, but it is -making surer than ever that they will land their craft in the appointed -harbor, though the damnations of all the powers of destruction are -buffeted against her in the attempt. - -My name for Armageddon is the War of Miscalculations, for it is a title -which indicts every belligerent without exception. The Germans expected -their army to be in Paris by the end of September, 1914. The English and -the French reckoned that Russian Cossacks would be hacking souvenirs -from the sepulchral statues in the Berlin _Sieges-Allee_ about the same -time. The British thought that Jellicoe would starve the Germans. Von -Tirpitz imagined that U-boats would paralyze Britain's life-line. The -British pounded vainly at the Dardanelles for nine months, and when they -couldn't get Calais the Germans started out to crush Serbia. Sir Edward -Grey thought Bulgaria and Greece were only waiting like ripe fruit to -drop into the Allies' lap and cry for marching orders. He was about as -near right as the German political professors who always assured William -II that India, Egypt, Canada, South Africa and Australia were itching to -revolt when the Motherland was immersed in a vast European war. The -great war has been a rude awakening for all concerned. In addition to -killing its millions of men and squandering its billions of money, it -has annihilated theories, expectations, plans and aspirations so cruelly -that the "war expert" has become a deathless laughing-stock. If -"experts" have learned anything from the war, they will henceforth -prefer history to prophecy. - -"Business as Usual"--life generally in the old rut, in other words--was -adopted by Britons as their war motto. Truly did a politician of renown -exclaim a year later that no unhappier, because no more unfortunate, -maxim was ever foisted upon or accepted by a patriotic people. The -nation made no inconsiderable attempt to convert "Business as Usual" -from an aphorism into an actuality. Seven or eight months of unrealized -objectives had to pass over English men and women's resolute heads -before they began even to doubt the efficacy of the complacent principle -they had laid down for themselves. But the mills of Mars, like those of -his colleagues, keep on grinding, and England was to learn that, while -invasion had not seared her soil as it had scotched that of all her -European allies, war yet had terrors capable of burning into the soul, -saddening the homes and despoiling the pockets of even an unravished -land. - -I fix the date when Great Britain began to face the iron logic of events -with sterner realization and to doubt the efficacy of "muddle" for -purposes of war as May, 1915. In the two preceding months there had -been a series of episodes of more climacteric magnitude than was -apparent at the moment of their occurrence. In March Sir John French's -army made a vigorous attempt to break through the German lines, and the -much-heralded "victory" of Neuve Chapelle resulted. Thousands of British -soldiers, and half a hundred Americans fighting in the Canadian -contingent, died gallantly in an action which, when its terrible cost -was eventually counted, could not be catalogued as anything but a -glorious failure. In April two affairs of purely German origin were -recorded, each predestined to leave a deep impress on the British public -mind: the employment of poison gas by the enemy in sanguinary -engagements around Ypres, and the flinging of thirty-nine British -officers, captives in Germany, into felons' cells by way of "reprisal" -for the segregation in England of captured German submarine crews. - -Because the truth about Neuve Chapelle remained suppressed for many -weeks, attention was bestowed to an overshadowing degree on the gas and -officer-imprisonment episodes. Hitherto the universal demand in England -was that, no matter how the Germans waged war, Englishmen must continue -to fight "like gentlemen." Suggestions that the hour had long since -arrived for an eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth warfare were -rejected in almost every quarter as "un-English" and, therefore, -undebatable. The Kaiser's soldateska might rape, pillage, loot and -murder, but British troops must battle "in the old-fashioned way"--with -clean hands. Tirpitz's bluejackets might practise the tactics of -pirates, but Britannia's sailors would continue to respect the high -traditions of their calling. Men went so far as to asseverate that it -were better that Britain should be beaten than win by "German methods." -Sir Edward Clarke, the leader of the bar, protesting against Sir Arthur -Conan Doyle's proposal that Zeppelin murders could only be checked by -British air reprisals against defenseless German communities, wrote to -_The Times_: "It may be our misfortune to be defeated in this war, but -it will be our own fault if we are disgraced." Yet British "fighting -blood" seemed at length stirred to a boil by asphyxiating-gas and "Hate" -measures against British officer-captives. A wave of holy rage swept -over the country. Those who had advocated the use of kid gloves against -an enemy which fought with brass knuckles and poison found their views -sensibly less popular. Britain was waking at last to the realization -which even the Belgian atrocities, "Zeppelin murder" and the -"Scarborough baby-killers" had not fully aroused--that her high-minded -"sporting ethics" were lamentably out of place in war with a foe which -believed in ruthless "Frightfulness." The Tommies who died horrible -deaths from the effects of German poison gas and the officers who -languished in burglars' cells because martyrs in a worthy cause--their -anguish convinced England almost against her will that the German was -the most ferocious, pitiless and unconscionable enemy who had ever -engaged in the noble calling of arms. - -While this healthy conviction was soaking into Britain's sluggish -consciousness, the crowning infamy of the _Lusitania_ massacre was -committed. The cup of indignation, already full to the brim, now -overflowed. Demand for vengeance, in the form of a campaign against the -Germans to be waged with resolution and force more destructive than any -previous effort, was universal. There must be no more temporizing, no -more half measures, no more vacillation and procrastination. Recruiting -enjoyed a fresh spurt, a response to the lurid posters headed "Remember -the _Lusitania_!" and reproducing the verdict of the Queenstown -coroner's jury - - -"that this appalling crime was contrary to international law and the -conventions of all civilized nations, and we therefore charge the -officers of the said submarine, the Emperor and Government of Germany, -under whose orders they acted, with the crime of wilful and wholesale -murder before the tribunal of the civilized world." - -"It is your duty," the poster added, "to take up the Sword of Justice to -avenge this devil's work. ENLIST TO-DAY!" - - -The _Lusitania_ horror unchained the mob spirit from Land's End to John -o' Groat. Uninterned Germans, who were still at large in their -thousands, were the victims of rioters' fury in London and the big -provincial towns, and the Home Office was forced by irate public opinion -to place barbed-wire around all the "enemy aliens" not already in -captivity. Simultaneously the demand went forth that the pampering of -German prisoners of war in palatial manor-houses like Dorington Hall -should give way to rigor more suitable for men condemned henceforth to -be known as Huns. The _Lusitania's_ aftermath was accompanied by ample -proof that the bulldog was no longer curled up on the hearth-rug as -unconcernedly as he had been throughout the winter and spring. He was -showing his teeth, and he was snarling. He meant business now. There -had been enough of Queensbury rules, Hurlingham ethics and Crystal -Palace niceties in dealing with the Germans. They had served notice to -Humanity that it had no laws which the German army and navy felt bound -to respect. Englishmen said to themselves: "So be it." Then they -rolled up their sleeves. - -Thus was Britain ringing with righteous wrath in the middle of May, -1915, when what I venture to dignify as _the turning-point of the war_ -arrived: the exposure by Lord Northcliffe's newspapers of what was -henceforth to be known as "the shells tragedy." Northcliffe himself had -recently been the guest of Sir John French at the front. Still more -lately the military critic of _The Times_, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles -Repington, had visited British Field Headquarters under the same -auspices. There they were told the truth about Neuve Chapelle. It was -a simple story. The British army had essayed to smash through the -German lines, hopelessly short of the right kind of ammunition--high -explosive shells. Batteries of artillery, often on the threshold of -decisive victory, found themselves suddenly starved of the only sort of -shell which could possibly blast a way through the concrete and -barbed-wire of the enemy's entrenchments. What happened at Neuve -Chapelle--a terribly heavy loss of British life with nothing like -compensatory results--would inevitably happen again when the British -army was called upon to attack. It would simply be sentenced to death -and defeat. Sir John French had been provided with shrapnel which was -good enough to smash the Boers, but he was criminally ill-equipped with -the shells which alone were capable of demolishing the elaborate German -defensive arrangements and enabling the British infantry to advance with -a fighting chance of success. If the army was not to be condemned to -inglorious impotence or annihilation, it had to be provided forthwith -with high-explosive ammunition on an immense and unceasing scale. The -British Commander-in-Chief declined, in effect, to assume further -responsibility for the fate of the campaign in Flanders unless there was -sweeping and instant remedial action by the War Office. - -On May 14 Lieutenant-Colonel Repington, in a dispatch to _The Times_ -from "Northern France," which, like other news from the field, passed -the Censor at Headquarters before transmission to England, declared that -"the want of an unlimited supply of high explosive was a fatal bar to -our success." Describing an attack which had collapsed for the same -reason that the offensive at Neuve Chapelle had failed, Repington wrote: - - -"We found the enemy much more strongly posted than we expected. We had -not sufficient high explosive to level his parapets to the ground after -the French practice, and when our infantry gallantly stormed the -trenches, as they did in both attacks, they found a garrison undismayed, -many entanglements still intact, and maxims on all sides ready to pour -in streams of bullets. We could not maintain ourselves in the trenches -won, and our reserves were not thrown in because the conditions for -success in an assault were not present. - -"The attacks were well planned and valiantly conducted. The infantry -did splendidly, but the conditions were too hard. - -"On our side we have easily defeated all attacks on Ypres. The value of -German troops in the attack has greatly deteriorated, and we can deal -easily with them in the open. But until we are thoroughly equipped for -this trench warfare, we attack under grave disadvantages. The men are -in high spirits, taking their cue from the ever-confident and resolute -attitude of the Commander-in-Chief. - -"If we can break through this hard outer crust of the German defenses, -we believe that we can scatter the German Armies, whose offensive causes -us no concern at all. But to break this hard crust we need more high -explosive, more heavy howitzers, and more men. This special form of -warfare has no precedent in history. - -"It is certain that we can smash the German crust if we have the means. -So the means we must have, and as quickly as possible." - - -By way of illustrating what British guns could do, if sufficiently -numerous and adequately fed, Repington told how the French "by dint of -the expenditure of 276 rounds of high explosive per gun in one day, -leveled with the ground all the German defenses, except the villages." -He left no doubt that until Sir John French's artillery could attack -under similar conditions, British hopes of effective cooperation with -Joffre's army were futile. _The Times_ critic's plain-spoken -observations, which bore the unmistakable imprint of "inspiration" from -British Headquarters, startled the nation. They could hardly have been -more suggestive if the Commander-in-Chief himself had gone to the -country and proclaimed the facts. Indeed, if others had not promptly -done so, I have reason to believe that Sir John French would not have -shrunk from that very task. No one had so direct and personal a reason -for taking the bull by the horns, for if the British campaign were to -degenerate from futility into fiasco, the odium would necessarily fall -upon its field chieftain. History will hardly condemn him for resolving -that the blame should be placed where it belonged, if, as may well have -been the case, inspiration of the impending public exposure emanated -from him. - -On May 21 Lord Northcliffe's _Daily Mail_--his critics are fond of -calling _The Times_ the "penny edition" of _The Daily Mail_--opened a -ruthless fire on Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, as the -man directly responsible for the high-explosive famine which was -paralyzing British military effort. England was plastered with flaming -placards reading: "Kitchener's Tragic Blunder." With the journalistic -instinct for a catch-phrase, Northcliffe christened the situation "The -Shells Tragedy." He hammered home mercilessly the theory that England -must hold to accountability the man whom the country had entrusted with -practically autocratic control of the War Office. He insisted that -Kitchener could not take shelter behind a brilliant past. It was a bold -throw for the Bonaparte of British newspaperdom. He was not only -assailing the man whom he himself had helped to elevate to the War -Secretaryship; he was attacking the national idol. To the overwhelming -majority of Englishmen, as I have already pointed out, the name of -Kitchener spelled confidence. Next to the Fleet, he represented the -country's greatest war asset. Whenever Britons doubted whether the -course of events was leading to victory, they thought of the navy and of -Kitchener, and were of stout heart. Northcliffe knew and understood all -this--none better. But he said to himself that the relief of the shells -crisis was of vastly more moment than the prestige of a national idol; -that if the vital interests of the country demanded the dragging of -Kitchener from his pedestal, there must be no hesitation in performing -that unpleasant task. In an editorial article which stirred Great -Britain to its uttermost foundations, _The Daily Mail_ went full tilt to -the issue. It reminded Englishmen that Lord Kitchener loomed large in -the public eye primarily as an organizer of victory against the Sudanese -and as a man who had "helped" Lord Roberts in South Africa, though (it -recalled) there were men who knew Roberts' private opinions of -Kitchener's achievements in the Boer campaign. Kitchener had also been -Commander-in-Chief in India and, until the outbreak of war, was engaged -in the comparatively easy task of running the Egyptian machine, whose -wheels had been so well oiled by Lord Cromer. Northcliffe was well -aware that Kitchener, owing to his long absence in the East, where he -had spent the greater part of his life, was not in touch with the -democracy at home, nor had Lord Kitchener ever pretended to any such -knowledge. _The Daily Mail_ admitted all these things and declared -moreover that it was fair to Kitchener to say that he had been thrust at -a moment's notice into a position of immense difficulty. No longer in -his first youth, and more than twice the age of successful military -commanders of one hundred years ago, Kitchener had been put in charge of -the raising, drilling, clothing, equipping, arming, feeding and -_fighting_ of an army which had to be manufactured at a speed -unprecedented in the history of the world. Kitchener, though not -essentially a good organizer, was a man of enormous driving-power. His -talents in that respect had stood him in good stead so far in the war. -With the aid of a gigantic advertising campaign, he had accomplished -marvels in the direction of raising a volunteer army; but "the shells -tragedy" was thunderous proof that the Secretary for War had bitten off -more than he could chew. Unless things were to go from bad to worse, -the all-important question of providing munitions must be taken from -Kitchener's overburdened shoulders and transferred to those of men -better equipped in respect of time, temperament and training, to deal -with it. The Northcliffe revelations lost none of their sensationalism -in presence of Mr. Asquith's solemn assurances at Newcastle, barely -three weeks previous, that Britain's munition supply, as well as that of -her Allies, was entirely adequate. - -If Northcliffe had suddenly proposed the abdication of the Sovereign, or -the demolition of St. Paul's Cathedral, or the proclamation of a -Republic, nothing could have been more cyclonic in its effect than _The -Daily Mail's_ imperious demand for the curtailment of Kitchener's -supreme authority at the War Office, because he had "blundered" with the -army's ammunition. At the Stock Exchange and on the Baltic (the shipping -mart) copies of all the Northcliffe papers were ceremoniously burnt. -Town councils held indignation meetings, to discuss the advisability of -banning them from the public reading-rooms. Super-patriots and -Hide-the-Truth zealots rushed to their newsdealers and canceled their -subscriptions to _The Times, The Daily Mail_ and other Northcliffe -organs. Rival publishers went so far as to suggest that Northcliffe and -his editorial staff should be lined up in front of a firing-squad and -shot for high treason. Wherever one went, one encountered the most -violent abuse of the journalist who had dared to sling mud at the great -soldier who was the incarnation of the nation's hopes and to write -"Failure" next to his magic name. _Punch_ epitomized national sentiment -in a cartoon showing John Bull patting Kitchener on the shoulder, -trampling a _Daily Mail_ under foot, and saying: - - -"If you need assurance, Sir, you may like to know that you have the -loyal support of all decent people in this country." - - -But Northcliffe, who possesses those valuable twin assets of the true -journalist, an elephantine hide and utter fearlessness, returned to the -attack, day after day. He never let up. The "shells tragedy," though -Liberal organs were reluctant to admit it, dealt the Asquith Liberal -Government a body blow. It was reeling from the effects of still -another revelation. Lord Fisher, "Fighting Jack," the First Lord of the -Admiralty, tendered his resignation. He refused longer to hold office -under the temperamental Mr. Winston Churchill or even under a government -to which that impetuous young statesman belonged. The public learned -that Fisher had not acquiesced whole-heartedly in Mr. Churchill's -schemes for limiting the Dardanelles campaign to a purely naval -operation. England was now seething with unrest. The political position -was chaotic. Acrimonious debate in Parliament on the shells question -was inevitable. For weeks previous there had been demands from many -quarters that the conduct of the war should be transferred from a purely -Party Government to the hands of a "National Cabinet" of all political -complexions. Mr. Asquith yielded to the inevitable. Before _The Daily -Mail's_ exposure of "Kitchener's Tragic Blunder" was a week old, the -reconstruction of the Cabinet into a "Coalition" Administration was in -full progress. Northcliffe's papers were still being burnt in public -places, but he had won a victory for England for which, as she lives, -she will yet come to acclaim his name. The completion of the Coalition -Ministry was announced on June 11. Lord Kitchener remained Secretary of -War, but a "Ministry of Munitions," which took shells and other sinews -of war out of Kitchener's hands, was created, and the "hustler" of the -Cabinet, Lloyd-George, was entrusted with its organization and -administration. Northcliffe had carried his point. - -The war has not been prolific in England of "big men." Barring, -perhaps, Joffre and Hindenburg, it has produced none anywhere. But I -venture that far into the realm of prophecy to predict that the recorder -of the life and times of Great Britain in the crucible which was 1915 -will pay no mean tribute to the newspaper proprietor who risked prestige -and power for the sake of that most prodigious of all tasks--stuffing -unpalatable truth down British throats. Northcliffe's actual methods in -the performance of the deed may have been debatable. His motives were -certainly beyond question, and they will, undoubtedly, appear in true -perspective in the impartial light of history. He is not offended when -people detect Napoleonic flashes in his impetuous eccentricities, and he -would be the last man in the world to deny that his brand of genius is -entirely devoid of defects, as it assuredly is not. Northcliffe has been -held up to public obloquy as hardly any man of his generation ever was -before him and has even been charged with being in "German pay." But he -has lived to see the ripening of the fruits of his sensational crusade: -the British munitions output has been quadrupled since the Stock -Exchange first burnt _The Daily Mail_. Lloyd-George, at the Ministry of -Munitions, has gathered round him the strongest company of business and -scientific brains that was ever applied to any Government department in -England. One million men and women, in more than two thousand -"controlled" establishments, are turning out days, nights and Sundays -the shells with which the British army, early or late, is going to -cleave its way to victory. In the great fighting around Loos at the end -of September, when the French and the British between them fired -65,000,000 shells in seventy-two hours, there was no shortage of the -wherewithal, the lack of which turned Neuve Chapelle into a "victory" -which Britain had been better without. A prodigious amount of high -explosive was necessary to wreck the Germans' first defensive lines in -Artois, but still the supply was not exhausted. When the cease-fire was -sounded, the British commanders found that they had on hand a great deal -more ammunition than they expected, and in certain departments there was -actually a greater quantity ready for the gunners at the end of the -struggle than at the beginning. Mr. Lloyd-George received and was -entitled to the chief glory for that splendid assurance that there would -be no more Neuve Chapelles. But I am sure that the little Welshman who -has accomplished the miracle of "speeding up" Britain would be the first -to acknowledge that _The Daily Mail_, though its circulation is 150,000 -less than it was in May, can not be robbed of the honor that belongs to -it for having torn the scales from England's eyes on the "shells -tragedy." - -Previous to the "shells tragedy," I do not think it will be possible for -even the friendliest chroniclers to record that, with the single -exception of the magnificent rush to arms of her upper and middle -classes, Great Britain had given a particularly flattering account of -herself in the searching test of war. I do not refer, of course, to the -accomplishments of the army and navy. British soldiers and sailors need -no encomium at my hands. The Trojan heroism of the army, despite its -lack of sweeping victory, will enrich military history for all time. -The silent effectiveness of the navy, with its vindication of Admiral -Mahan's theories, is the marvel of the war. I am referring to the -conduct of the British who have not been in the war as combatants--to -the moral psychic aspect of life in this country during the year of -travail. That is why I call the _Lusitania_ a blessing in disguise, -just as I sometimes felt that a landing of a German force on the British -coasts, had it only taken place soon enough, might have proved the most -practically beneficial tonic to the British war spirit which could have -been conceived. Something was needed to _bring the war home_ to -Englishmen. The _Lusitania_ partially served the purpose. - -The renaissance set in with the dawn of summer. Events did not give -recruiting quite that "boom" which was expected, but the national -sobering process which ensued was more than a compensating factor. -Lloyd-George, inevitable and irrepressible, invented the doctrine that -"silver bullets" (money) and Germany's "potato-bread spirit" (economy) -were now as urgently necessary for Britain to win as high-explosives -with which to kill Germans. Only a few weeks before becoming "Shells -Minister" and while still Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd-George -introduced the second War Budget, which gave Britons a staggering idea -of what killing Germans meant in mere lucre. It was costing $15,000,000 -a day then--in May--and the scale was crescendo, not diminuendo. -Lloyd-George declared that the nation's bills could not be met unless -the country went over, horse, foot and dragoon, to the Simple Life. The -Prime Minister seconded his appeal for the radical regeneration of -British life--a conversion from recklessness to Spartanism--with some -eloquent figures. In a "keynote speech" at Guildhall, Mr. Asquith -declared that "waste, on the part either of individuals or of classes, -which is always foolish and shortsighted, is in these times nothing -short of a national danger." The United Kingdom's annual income, the -Premier explained, was between $11,250,000,000 and $12,000,000,000. -Annual expenditure aggregated about $10,000,000,000. The country, -therefore, saved under normal conditions between $1,250,000,000 and -$2,000,000,000. But the necessities of "our seven wars" (in different -parts of the hemisphere) required Britons to save about two and a half -times what they customarily put away. They needed to store up -$5,000,000,000 instead of $2,000,000,000 a year. In other words, they -must reorganize their scheme and standards of living--and of -spending--so that they saved $50 for every $20 saved in the past. In no -other conceivable way, said the Prime Minister, could Great Britain -shoulder the burden of a struggle already costing her at the rate of -$5,475,000,000 a year. To ask the notoriously most extravagant people -in Europe--the returns from the United States are not in yet--to -"economize" on the Brobdingnagian lines which these figures conjured up -was a very tall order, indeed. - -But the gassed Tommies back from the trenches and the widows and the -orphans manufactured by the _Lusitania_ and the impregnability of the -German lines were uppermost in England's mind, and she set her jaw to -the inevitable. The Simple Life did not find itself among friends in -the midst of a race which believes in a maximum of servants on a minimum -of income; whose very homes and kitchens are the paradise of wasters; -which venerates leisure, week-ends, "good addresses" and "parties"; -which left the omnibuses to the crowd and scorned anything beneath the -rank of a taxi for the truly well-born; which would gladly go poor for a -week for the sake of a Saturday lunch at the Piccadilly grill and a -supper at the Savoy, with a theater and a music-hall between, and -Murray's afterward till dawn; which, while never ostentatious, was -addicted to luxury; which worshiped golf, football, bridge and -horse-racing like liberty itself, and which drank like sailors all. - -But the ax of retrenchment was infinitely preferable to the sword of -Damocles. Lords and ladies, "gentry" and common folk, prepared to make -the best of it. Prohibition, mainly to enforce sobriety on the working -classes, was considered by the Government, but not for long, for there -was a mighty howl from the "trade" and from its bibulous votaries, who -in England include both sexes, all classes and nearly every age. -Restriction, not prohibition, was adopted as a compromise. In the -"munition areas" the saloons were closed at the hours when, in former -times, working men were most inclined to squander their wages on -debilitating ale and alcohol. Everywhere a "No-drinks-before-10-A.-M." -decree was promulgated, and, simultaneously, it became a misdemeanor for -a restaurant, saloon, hotel, bar or even a private club to dispense -liquor after ten o'clock at night. Clubland in Pall Mall, St. James's -and Piccadilly groaned, and there was gnashing of teeth among the "nuts" -(young bloods) and the ladies of the chorus. But people found they had -more money for bread and butter, potatoes, vegetables and meat, which -were costing semi-famine prices as it was, and there were fewer besot -wrecks of women in the Strand, and almost no intoxicated men in khaki. -War manifestly had its blessings, too. One met unfamiliar people in the -plebeian motor-buses, who at first wrapped their evening-coats -exclusively and close around them, for contact with the common clay was -still new and strange. It became positively fashionable to be a -cheese-parer. You were no longer considered "bad form" if you went -straight home from the theater, and confessed why. If my lady of -Mayfair did not close up her house in South Audley Street or Park Lane -altogether, to live in "chambers" or some cozy country cottage, which -was also cheap, she at least shut up the drawing-rooms, dispensed with a -maid or two, cut out the most expensive courses at her dinners, when she -gave any at all, and didn't mind if her guests turned up in day clothes. - -The plutocratic peer who ordinarily maintained a "place" at the -seashore, an estate in Middlesex or Devon, and a town-house in Berkeley -Square had probably long ago handed over the "place" and the estate for -military hospital purposes--hardly a mansion or manor-house in England -to-day is devoted to any other use--and now retrenchment became for him -the order of the day in London, too. His stable of thoroughbreds almost -vanished in the early days of the war, for the needs of the cavalry and -the artillery were insatiable and undiscriminating, and now his _garage_ -was down to a war basis--the most plebeian car he ever drove; the others -were in army service either in England or "somewhere in France." -Sackville Street and Albemarle Street, Bond Street and Regent Street, -where smart clothes and other expensive trinkets for men and women were -formerly sold, became deserted. Men's tailors displayed nothing but -khaki in their windows, and Paquin's, Redfern's and Worth's languished -as if England were famine-blighted. Society faded away as if pestilence -had swept Uppertendom into oblivion. Women of Britain's first families -were almost ashamed to be seen in anything more chic than the livery of -mourning, and by midsummer of 1915 black was pitiably fashionable and -omnipresent. "Entertaining" had been a lost art for months. "Going in -for it" now seemed and was sacrilege. Indulged at all, it was excusable -only if it had the extenuating excuse of having been arranged, and then -in the most modest of ways, for one's wounded or recuperating officer -friends, back from Hell or on the eve of going there--"somewhere in -France." It was war-time in England at last. - -If I have seemed to emphasize that the reconstruction of British life, -after bitterly hard knocks on land and sea pounded some realization of -their task's magnitude into Englishmen's heads, went on chiefly in the -upper and upper-middle classes, it is precisely the impression I seek to -convey. It is they alone, to date, who have taken the full measure of -Britain's terrible emergency and acted accordingly. Even that statement -requires qualification, for the fools' paradise is not even to-day -inhabited exclusively by the benighted lower strata of the population. -Neuve Chapelle, asphyxiating gas and the _Lusitania_ had passed into -history a full month before, yet there lingers painfully in my memory -the recollection of a country-house week-end party broken up because -Englishwomen of "class" objected to hearing a fellow-guest venture the -opinion that dear old England would better "wake up" to the fact that -calm alone, mighty an asset as it was, could not "march to Berlin" -against an enemy like the Germans. These ladies were interesting as -types. Their name was legion, and many of them, as an Irishman might -say, were men. Common sense, prized of Anglo-Saxon virtues, and -tolerance, its twin sister, lost their old-time hold on many millions in -these isles during the war. The "Anti-German Union," which was founded -by well-meaning noblemen and noblewomen for the purpose of organizing -hate of the Teuton and all his works, perhaps set itself an unethical -goal, but the psychology at the bottom of the movement was wholesome; it -was all to the good, because it was sharpening the bulldog's teeth. It -committed uncouth excesses like sending interrupters to the German -Church service in Montpelier Place, forgetting that my esteemed friend, -the Reverend Mr. Williams, the Anglican chaplain in Berlin, was never -prevented from assembling his uninterned flock for worship at St. -George's in Montbijou-Platz. Far less excusable than the "Anti-German -Union's" super-patriotic eccentricities was the smug intolerance of -enormous numbers of British toward elementary questions of the war. -They would hear nothing of the Germans unless it was discreditable. I -would write in my "Germany Day by Day" column in _The Daily Mail_ that -there were growing indications (let us say) that the enemy was still at -fighting zenith--his stock of men, materials and provisions still far -from exhausted. The next day's post would invariably bring me -denunciatory letters from anonymous members of the public. I was -"pro-German." I was "a German agent." I was "playing the enemy's -game." Englishmen didn't "care to read the twaddle of a man who was -still so enamored of the Hun capital where he so long lived." And when -I wrote of American exasperation with British shipping practises in war, -an English patriot induced my editor to print a letter in retort, -"praying passionately for preservation from the candid friend." Other -correspondents did not confine their observations to supplication. They -were the high privates, these human ostriches, of the Grand Army of -Truth-Hiders, who, commanded by great editors in Fleet Street and ably -abetted by the Censorship, preferred palatable fiction to iron facts. -It is they who kept John Bull lulled in complacent slumber for most of -the first year of the war and are doing their diabolical best to -administer sleeping-powder even now. - -Yet, by and large, the section of the British public which does its -thinking above its gaiter-tops was effectually roused from its dreams as -Armageddon's initial twelvemonth approached its finish. It was the -sub-stratum which could not be roused from the stupor of indifference. -The war had brought mourning and desolation to the upper-class homes of -England. The havoc wrought in the ranks of the peerage and other -dignities is poignantly summarized in the new _Debrett_. Ten per cent. -of the British officers who have died in the war were in the pages of -_Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage_, and in the -issue for 1916, just published, the War Roll of Honor of the dead -comprises eight hundred names. In it appear one member of the Royal -Family--Prince Maurice of Battenberg; six peers, sixteen baronets, six -knights, and seven members of Parliament, one hundred sixty-four knights -companion, ninety-five sons of peers, eighty-two sons of baronets, and -eighty-four sons of knights. Two successive heirs to the earldom of -Loudoun fell, and the death of Lord Worsdey affected the succession to -three separate peerages, the earldom of Yarborough and the baronies of -Fauconberg and Conyers. Succession has been unduly precipitated, or the -normal descent changed, in over one hundred instances by the casualties -of the war. The peer, the professional man, or the merchant, had had an -almost annihilating blow struck at his fortune. Things during the past -year had dealt these classes a vicious thrust. But working-class and -lower-class Britain were actually profiting from the war. Wages were -inordinately high--despite trade-unionism's unceasing clamor. -Unemployment no longer existed. There were no soup-kitchens along the -Embankment. The Salvation Army's poor-relief system was almost without -an excuse. Families of clerks and working men--many thousands of whom -were volunteers in Kitchener's armies--were, thanks to generous -separation allowances paid by the War Office, almost better off than in -the days when the bread-winner was at home. For the British proletariat -Mars seemed almost a savior. He had brought it unwonted prosperity. -The temper in which a vast portion of the "downtrodden" looked upon -their new-born affluence was that self-preservation, being the first law -of nature, insistently demanded nothing from them which would -precipitately evict them from Easy Street. The Grand Fleet protected -lower-class England from the only blow which could conceivably have -knocked sense into it--invasion. As that did not and could not occur, -Shepherd's Bush envisaged war not as an unmixed evil, but as something -better, somehow, than peace had ever been. It is all woefully at -loggerheads with Norman Angell's theories of the "devastating economic -influence of war." But the immutable fact is that working-class -Britain, despite the havoc the war has played with trade, incomes and -high finance generally, finds itself, despite even the higher cost of -living, at least on as prosperous a level as at any time in its -contemporary history. It may be a myopic view, but it explains, in my -judgment, much of the proletariat's amazing apathy toward the crucial -national emergency. - -The building of the New England is still in progress. The melting-pot is -full. Years will elapse before the finished product leaves the -crucible. The process of transition, however, has made enormous -strides. Adversity is a wonderful reorganizer. The physiognomy of -things long held unchangeable is altered almost beyond recognition. It -is a better England already, as well as a new one. Above all, Democracy -has not failed in the supreme test. The spectacle of three million men, -uncoerced, responsive and responsible to no law but their own -conscience, marching out to death and glory that England may live, is a -sublime picture, which will blot out and overshadow much of the bungling -and many of the disasters and excrescences of the past. - -If I have seemed to dwell with insistence and even cynicism upon -"British calm" amid the thunders, let me here and now subscribe -unqualifiedly to the view that it remains, when all is said and done, a -magnificent achievement second only to the demonstration of Voluntaryism -as a Democracy's first line of defense. Britannia will continue to rule -the waves mainly because she was calm when they surged about her most -angrily. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - QUO VADIS? - - -October, 1915. The eighty-third day of the second year of war. A -woman, writing in _The Times_, suggests that England adopt as her -national prayer, "God help us win this war." King George V, emerging at -length from the No Man's Land of Constitutional Irresponsibility, -appeals, stirringly, "to my people" to save the sinking bark of -Voluntary military service. It is the calm before the Conscription -storm. The Sovereign discourses upon "the grave moment in the struggle" -and calls for "men of all classes to come forward and take their share -in the fight in order that another may not inherit the free Empire which -their ancestors and mine have built." The King hints at "the darkest -moment" which, from time immemorial, "has ever produced in men of our -race the sternest resolve." - -Britain's horizon is clouded, wherever one looks. No forced optimism can -blink iron facts. In the East, Russia is paralyzed for months to come, -even if not "crushed." Her fortresses, "deemed impregnable," writes -Lloyd-George in the preface of his compiled war speeches, "are falling -like sand castles before the resistless tide of Teutonic invasion." The -"steam-roller" must go into winter quarters. In the West, the great -Anglo-French offensive in Artois and the Champagne punctures the German -front and advances the Allied lines two or three miles. The German -losses are her severest of the war--140,000, so the French say, -including vast heaps of dead, whole regiments of maimed and at least -25,000 prisoners and 145 field-guns. But the victory, substantial and -promising as it is, has been dearly bought. The Germans claim that the -preliminary seventy-two-hour bombardment represented an expenditure of -65,000,000 shells--mostly of American production, so allege the -"inspired" war-correspondents at German headquarters, with sneering -references to "blood-smeared dollars." The Allies' casualties are not -tabulated. They are only known to be cruelly heavy. Englishmen fear -there has been another Neuve Chapelle. Joffre and French have -demonstrated that the German front is not quite impenetrable. But the -enemy, on his part, has shown that for the Allies to "break through" in -the West is a task fraught with peril and toll sickening to contemplate. - -General Sir Ian Hamilton, Commander-in-Chief at the Dardanelles, has -been recalled "to report." Another British general, unnamed, is -dismissed for having led an army into a shambles at Suvla Bay. The -campaign in Gallipoli is a tacitly acknowledged failure. General Sir -Charles Monro is hurried to Turkey to succeed Hamilton and retrieve the -fortunes of an expedition which has already cost 100,000 casualties, a -trio of battleships, a transport full of troops, and heart-breaking -incalculable. There are ugly rumors that the Allies, facing the -inevitable, are about to abandon the ill-starred Dardanelles venture, -and try their luck elsewhere. Against the German-led Turks twelve miles -of precarious "front" with a back to the sea is all -Anglo-Colonial-French valor has been able to achieve. But misfortune has -dogged the Allies in fields remote from the actual theaters of war. -While Germanic-Turko armies have been wrecking their military hopes -East, West and Near East, Allied diplomacy has been disastrously foiled -in the pivotal Balkans. Bulgaria, deemed friendly, though venal, openly -goes over to the enemy. Sir Edward Grey, like his fellow-idol, -Kitchener, is under withering fire. He is charged with permitting -Berlin to score a victory which might have been London's if British -diplomacy had been characterized by less tentativeness of policy and -greater impetuosity of deed. It seems the old story--"too late." "Have -we a Foreign Office?" bitterly asks Fleet Street. But the cup of -disappointment is not full even yet. Greece, too, is recreant. She -mobilizes, supposedly as a pro-Ally counterstroke to the pro-German -Bulgarian menace, for is not the King of the Hellenes bound by solemn -treaty to join Peter of Serbia in the eventuality of attack by Ferdinand -of Sofia? But Downing Street failed to reckon with King "Tino" of -Athens and his Hohenzollern consort, the Kaiser's favorite sister, -Sophia. Premier Venizelos, the Allies' hope, is forced to resign. -Greece remains "neutral," between German Charybdis and English Scylla, -as King Constantine himself describes his plight. She shuts her eyes to -the nebulous Allied expeditionary force landed at Salonica and "rushed" -precipitately at the eleventh hour to the relief of the Serbs, who are -even now threatened with annihilation between the German-Austrians on -the north and west, and the back-stabbing Bulgars on the east. Belgrade -falls. Uskub is captured. The Salonica line to Nish is cut. Germany's -"road to Constantinople" is open. The Kaiser can get there now before -the Allies. Diplomacy grasps at a last straw. Cyprus, annexed from -Turkey by Britain early in the war, is offered to Greece if she will -fling her army into the breach. In Athens, it appears, dictates of -self-preservation govern. Revealing a highly-developed Missourian -trait, Greece asks to be "shown." By active operations against the -Germanic Powers and Bulgaria, assisted by mere promises of more Allied -reinforcements via Salonica or the driblets already sent, Greece fears -to share Belgium and Serbia's fate. If the Allies will send 400,000 -troops to the Balkans--or about twice as many as have been pounding -fruitlessly at the Dardanelles--Greece might change her mind. The -suggestion inspires little enthusiasm in England. Kitchener and French -can doubtless spare the men. But the equipment of another huge British -army for operations in the Near East in time to turn the tables is a -taller order. Meantime Mackensen and Gallwitz batter their way across -the Serbian ranges. In London there are anxious doubts whether there -will even be any Serbian army to "relieve" by the time the Allies place -an effective rescuing expedition in the decisive theater. Serbia begins -to look uncomfortably like another Belgium--Salonica like ill-starred -Antwerp. Blunder and procrastination were ever the parents of disaster. - -So much for the military and political situation, which even the -Truth-Hiders begin to see in its true colors. But if things were -"messed" abroad--in the West and in the Near East--muddle and bungle -were even more rampant at home. Take the Zeppelins. They first visited -these shores in January, 1915. In October Press and Parliament -commenced for the first time seriously to investigate the adequacy of -Britain's "aerial defenses," with the result that chaotic demoralization -and systemless go-as-you-please were found to prevail. Sir Percy Scott, -the country's greatest gunnery expert, had been in charge of London's -defenses against the sky-pirates, but it appeared that his guns were -ineffective, his gunners untrained for the highly specialized feat of -hitting mile-high targets flying in the dark, and things in general -unorganized and more or less futile. The Press Bureau condescendingly -parted with an abstract story of the latest and most disastrous raid of -all over "the London area." People derived lively satisfaction from its -disclosure that the metropolis was "cool" and unafraid under fire. Only -a few courageous "alarmists" read the signs of the times aright and -demand that some life and efficiency forthwith be injected into the -"anti-aircraft" department, lest, when Count Zeppelin's range-finding -practise cruises across London are finished, an armada of German -airships sail across the Channel and reduce the heart of the Empire, -ever calm, to a smoking ash-heap before Sir Percy Scotts' defense is -perfected. There was anxious talk of bringing over "expert gunners" -from France--in October, after nearly ten months and after twenty-five -Zeppelin raids over English territory! - -The while the elephant-hided Censorship, as if Britannia's troubles were -not all-sufficient, insisted upon making itself more of an international -laughing-stock and object of world contempt than ever. It censored -Kipling's _Recessional_ in a battle-story from France. It deleted a -quotation from Browning in another narrative from the front. It cut out -a famous war correspondent's tribute to the bravery of the enemy. It -eliminated a reference to Chatham, England's greatest War Minister, -because it confused him with the famous British naval base from which he -took his title. It refused to let out a single notch in the muzzle it -has attached even to the benevolently neutral American Press, as -represented by its accredited and notoriously Anglophile correspondents -in England. It reveled in concealment, deception and grotesqueness, -though concealing nothing from the enemy and everything from England, -deceiving exclusively the British public, and making nobody grotesque -except its egregious self. Calls for the light at home, ridicule and -criticism from abroad, alike left the Censor unmoved. The sparrows -cried from the housetops in ever more insistent accents that all was not -well with England, but the Censorship, magnificently blind even to the -Royal pronouncement that Britons unfailingly respond when the hour is -dark, maintained imperiously that what it was well for the country to -know was for it, and it alone, to decide. If the British public were a -transgressor, its way could not have been harder. - -Came Mr. Montagu, the Financial Secretary of the Treasury, the reputed -"budget genius" of the Government. Britons must be prepared, he told -them, "during the year ahead, to disgorge to the State _not less than -one-half of their entire income_, either in the form of taxes or loans." -Lord Reading's borrowing commission to America was still on the water, -the ink on its $500,000,000 "credit loan" in New York not yet dry. "I -estimate our expenditure for the year," said Mr. McKenna, the Finance -Minister, in the House of Commons, at "seven billions, nine hundred -fifty million dollars" (only he spoke in pounds). "As our total -estimated revenue, inclusive of new taxes, is one billion, five hundred -twenty-five million dollars, the deficit for the year will be six -billion, four hundred twenty-five million dollars. We have now to -contemplate a Navy costing for the current year $950,000,000, an Army -costing $3,575,000,000, and external advances to our Allies (Russia, -France, Italy, Serbia and Belgium) amounting to $2,115,000,000." - -Then the merciless Chancellor of the Exchequer acquainted Parliament -with his scheme for raising a part of this Brobdingnagian revenue. Free -trade must be partially shelved. There will be a revenue tariff on -"luxury" imports. Income-tax in 1916 will be forty per cent. higher and -will amount altogether to about fifty cents on every five dollars -earned. Even the man with $650 a year will pay, while "plutocrats" with -incomes above that figure will be mulcted even more relentlessly. He of -$25,000 will pay $5,150, and nabobs with $50,000, $100,000 and $500,000 -per annum (England has several in the latter category) will contribute, -respectively, $12,650, $30,150 and $170,150. War is hell. No wonder a -parliamentary wag, on the day Mr. McKenna introduced "Conscription of -Wealth," interrupted with a merry "Why don't you take it all?" - -Up to December, 1915, the Government had asked Parliamentary sanction -for war credits aggregating $6,500,000,000. But even this staggering -total (the war was now costing $25,000,000 a day) was planned to carry -the campaign only up to the middle of November. The $500,000,000 loan -transaction in the United States only produced funds to be spent there, -and it was but half of what was asked. It only indirectly relieves the -situation at home. Allowing for the deficit carried over from last -year, the latest budget proposes taxes amounting to $1,525,000,000 and -loans aggregating $6,425,000,000 for the fiscal year 1915-16. But even -the most patriotic experts in Threadneedle Street acknowledge the utter -impossibility of raising $6,425,000,000 of genuine money by public loan -in Britain per year. They reluctantly predict that the Government will -soon be driven to extend its use of fictitious money and paper--on the -excoriated German model. The war has already eaten toward the bottom of -the stockings and the strong-boxes of Britain where American securities -are stored. - -As the financier not only of her own colossal requirements in the war, -but as banker for her allies, England's money necessities are thus seen -to be no less urgent than her need of men and munitions. They comprise, -these three M's, the trilogy on which the existence of the Empire now -depends. British performances in respect to the cash sinews of war have -truly been on a monumental scale. History shows no parallel for the -achievement of raising at home in loans and Treasury bills over -$5,500,000,000 without abandonment of the gold standard and without -resort to inconvertible paper, and yet keeping British credit at an -altitude which gives hard-headed Uncle Sam no pause in taking John -Bull's I-O-U for another half billion. It is an imperishable tribute to -the stamina, prestige, wealth and commercial fabric of the British -Empire and to the enterprise and ingenuity of the merchants, -manufacturers, shippers, bankers and traders who have made their islands -the center of the world's exchanges and London the money-market of the -universe. - -[Illustration: Lord Northcliffe] - -But magnificent as has been the past, the financial future can not be -viewed except with anxiety. Indebtedness has been piled up sky-high--out -of every twenty-five dollars spent since the war began, at least twenty -dollars has been borrowed. That was possible because of the superlative -excellence of British credit. "Our credit is now almost everything," -explains _The Economist_. "It comes next to the Navy, and the two can -not be dissociated. For if either suffer, our food supplies would be in -danger. In one sense, credit is at the mercy of the Government and of -the Treasury, for a great false step of policy or continuance in a false -course would bring disaster. The responsibility of the Prime Minister -and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Cabinet, as a whole, -is prodigious. Whatever else we do, we must maintain our financial -equilibrium. With that and the command of the seas, we can not be -defeated." - -Manifestly Britain's economic problem is almost the darkest spot on her -overclouded war horizon--the problem of meeting rising obligations out -of falling revenue. The Empire suffers from no lack of men; its -physical resources are well-nigh inexhaustible. If patriotism does not -send them to the trenches of their own free will in adequate numbers, -they will be "fetched." There is no longer any question of shortage of -munitions. England's own vast industrial plant, as well as that of -France, is now occupied almost exclusively in the production of -man-killing merchandise for the Allies and is turning it out at high -pressure. To the manufacturing equipment of England and France are -harnessed, in addition, German bombs and German-incited strikes to the -contrary notwithstanding, the limitless productive facilities of the -United States and Canada. Britain's one and only nightmare is money, -and its corollary aspects, exchange and credit. - -No estimate has so far appeared which fixes the 1916 deficit which -England will have to meet at less than $7,000,000,000, based on a total -war cost for the calendar year of $9,000,000,000. How to grapple with -the gigantic task conjured up by such a prospect is not engaging popular -attention to any marked degree, though upon its solution depends, -primarily, Britain's ability to conquer in this war of exhaustion. With -the palpable impossibility of raising the wind at home by successive new -public loans; with the necessity to invoke such heroic measures as -borrowing $500,000,000 in America to bolster up sterling exchange and -keep British credit "intact"; with Englishmen sacrificing their enormous -holdings of American securities for the same pious purpose; with the -British industrial plant so preoccupied with munitions that it can -neither, in accordance with tradition, pay for British imports with -British exports nor increase British revenue by the same token; with -national expenditure advancing by gigantic leaps and national income -restricted as it never was before; with all these immutable conditions -staring at Englishmen, it is no wonder that those of them who think, as -distinguished from those who merely hurrah, contemplate what looms ahead -with anxious concern. - -But admittedly grave as the future is, it is by no means hopeless. -Britain's plight is not "desperate," as the Germans, seeking to hide -their own, are so fond of making believe. Even the misgivings of -Englishmen themselves regarding their economic situation would be -promptly and legitimately resolved into confidence if the community as a -whole could be induced to pull itself together and look facts in the -face. In its incorrigible disinclination to do so alone lies danger. -The British Empire is not bankrupt. It can hardly ever become so. A -recent estimate assessed the income of the Empire, including India, at -something over the fabulous sum of $20,000,000,000! It may be -embarrassed--it is unquestionably that already--just as the richest of -men frequently are, in the midst of titanic transactions which have -outrun their calculations. But embarrassment seldom eventuates in ruin, -either for men or nations, if they come to grips with it betimes. Thus, -disaster can only follow tribulation in the case of Britain if her -people, preferring to wallow in happy-go-lucky nonchalance and drift, -postpone until too late those sagacious, clean-sweep measures of -reorganization and retrenchment which alone, in the opinion of competent -judges, can save the situation. - -In the preceding chapter I told of the introduction of the Simple Life, -of the dawn of the Economy Era in war-time England; but it would be -hyperbole to intimate that it has been inaugurated on anything but a -superficial scale. Luxury and self-indulgence are still rife. To vast -numbers of people, in the classes as well as the masses, the war, far -from oppressing them, has brought positive affluence, and with their new -riches they have gone in for spending instead of saving. Spartanism in -Britain remains a good deal of a theory; it has not become a condition. -While Germany, shut off by land and sea, contrives to remain at fighting -zenith without her customary imports of $2,500,000,000 a year (she calls -Jellicoe's blockade a blessing in disguise because it has compelled her -to spend at home what she used to pay out abroad), England's imports of -such articles as oranges, cocoa, tea, coffee, tobacco, cheese, rice, -meats, pepper and onions have heavily exceeded her importations of the -same articles in corresponding peace periods.[1] The Prime Minister -tells the country that "victory seems likely to incline to the side -which can arm itself the best and stay the longest." Mr. Asquith -declares that "that is what we meant to do." But until, for instance, -Englishmen realize that by abstaining from tobacco for a year, -$40,000,000 of money would be available for the smoke of battle; that if -every man, woman and child in the Kingdom puts away 25 cents a week, a -new treasure of $600,000,000 could be piled up for war; and that unless -waste, extravagance and slothful habits generally are banished, by duke -and by docker, as if they were leprous disease, Mr. Asquith's brave -words will remain a hollow aspiration. They alone will not enable -England to "stay the longest" in the world's most destructive endurance -competition. - - -[1] There are ugly rumors that Produce Exchange patriots who burnt _The -Daily Mail_ for exposing the "shells tragedy" are the importers of these -excessively large stores and are selling them to "Holland"--and other -"neutrals" adjacent to Germany at exorbitant profits. - - -It is not change of governments, but ruthless change of system, which -England requires. She has relegated a vast deal since the cleansing -process set in, in August a year ago, but the scrap-heap clamors for -more. It cries most insistently of all for obliteration of the fetish -that politicians, lawyers and other amateurs are fit to conduct a -government engaged in the most terrible combat of human history. -Napoleon once said that a nation of lions led by a stag would be beaten -by a nation of stags led by a lion. Britons claim to be a nation of -lions. They contemplate the first year of the war and ask if they are -to continue to be led along the path of disaster by stags. The -Truth-Hiders quote Lincoln and deprecate "swapping horses while crossing -a stream." Lord Willoughy de Broke effectually disposes of this "plea -for incompetence in office" by telling the House of Lords that "whether -such a course should be adopted depends on what sort of a horse a man -has beneath him. If the horse is standing in the middle of the stream -and seems as if he were going to lie down, the best thing is to get -another." Englishmen admit that war like this demands wholesale -reconstruction of national life, yet their government has substituted -spasmodic patchwork for reconstruction. Instead of bold tearing-down -and rebuilding, there has been nibbling and tinkering, and even then, -too late. The people have waited for marching orders in countless -directions, but the Government band has played nothing but a hesitation -waltz. Take the drink evil, Britain's most malignant ulcer. Russia is -not commonly looked to for economic or social inspiration, yet even she -has wrestled with drink in a manner which puts England to shame. While -the Czar was banishing vodka absolutely for the pestilence that it was, -England's governors, fearful of Labor and "the trade" alike, temporized -and enacted makeshifts which materially ameliorated the liquor menace -without throttling its power for evil. They have made "treating" a -misdemeanor, closed the saloons, both public and private, at 10 P.M., -and restricted the hours when drink may be sold in London and the -industrial districts. But clubmen, artisans and soldiers can get drunk -to their heart's content as of yore. They have had only to rearrange -their bibulous hours. Take the air defense muddle. "I, for one," wrote -a Briton in October, protesting against the prevailing theory that the -call of the hour, in the midst of the Zeppelin peril was "coolness," "am -tired of being complimented on the calmness with which I behave in the -presence of danger. It is no comfort to me that my death, if it occurs, -will have no military importance. I want to be congratulated not on the -stoicism with which I go to my funeral, but on my share in a system of -government which affords effective protection to my country." - -Nothing could better stigmatize the epidemic of Self-Sufficiency which, -in the writer's deliberate judgment, is primarily responsible for -British failures in the war thus far. _There has been too much -congratulation and self-congratulation on the sang-froid with which John -Bull can take punishment_. He is a mighty gladiator, but cheery comfort -from his seconds between rounds has failed on many an occasion to -prevent a champion pugilist from being knocked out. It is not that -England is _incapable_ of defeating Germany. It is that she seems -_unwilling_ to do so by throwing into the balance every atom of strength -for which that prodigious task calls. For at least a decade before 1914 -Britain's political ostriches, disarmament-mongers, professional -pacifists and pro-Germans declined to recognize the German danger even -when it was approaching with strides so brazen that almost the blind -could see. They preferred the "valor of ignorance," thought Ballin and -Harnack instead of Tirpitz and Bernhardi typified Modern Germany, -continued to revel in the bliss of contemptuous self-confidence, and -attempted to parley with a tiger which was crouching for the attack. I -enter a modest claim to have done my own little share for eight years in -the futile work of arousing Britain to the Teuton peril. I refer merely -to my work at Berlin, in reporting military and naval -developments--"Germany laid all her cards on the table," as Admiral von -Tirpitz once said to me. When the crash came, Englishmen pinned their -faith to their history. They were no match for "forty years of -preparations," of course; but they always "started late" and "muddled -through" their wars. The Crimea began in terror and ended in triumph. -The South African affair was the same sort of thing. War with Germany -would be no different. The race which had finished off Napoleon need -have no qualms in tackling his pinchbeck successor. Britons admit that -a year of war has dissipated nearly all their comfortable illusions, but -signs are still wanting that there is nation-wide, deep-seated -realization of the immensity of the ordeal and the dimensions of the -sacrifices yet to be faced. On December 8, 1915, when the war was -sixteen months old, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford wrote this letter to -_The Times_: - - -"We are at present in a complex tangle of muddle and mismanagement. Our -military campaigns are being conducted without any objective or plan. -Policy only has been considered. - -"In war a policy has to be enforced by the Navy and Army. The War -Staffs have not been consulted as to whether they had the means in men -and material for enforcing the different policies inaugurated by the -Cabinet. Individuals have been consulted; combined opinion of War -Staffs has not been sought. The result is disaster in nearly every -direction. - -"We have not taken full advantage of our mastery of the sea. In every -department we observe doubt, hesitation, and procrastination. War -requires quick decisions and prompt actions. The question of supplying -recruits for the Army has been postponed once, and apparently may be -postponed again. Unless a decision is come to immediately we shall be a -year before the recruits joined under any new scheme can possibly be -ready to take the field. - -"The public is sick of the policy conveyed in the sentence 'Wait and -see.' The danger to the Empire becomes more apparent every day. The -country is waiting for a strong, clear lead. Our present methods will -prolong the war indefinitely. If we continue hesitating without making -up our minds on any single question connected with the war, we shall -plunge straight into disaster." - - -I, too, shall be a pessimist about England's chances to win the war only -so long as she neglects to _go to war_. Mere command of the sea, it has -been amply demonstrated, can not crush Germany. It can sorely -inconvenience her and compel her to live on the ration basis, but it can -not force what King George has called "a highly organized enemy" -prematurely to make peace. When England has staked her all, I shall turn -blithe optimist, for I believe that nothing else in the world can -overthrow her savagely efficient antagonist. Germany has staked her -_all_. Until England does likewise, they will not fight on even terms. -When England, like Germany, has relentlessly marshaled every tithe of -her national strength for war, subordinated all else to that purpose, -harnessed to the chariot of Mars every conceivable resource at her -command, pulverized caste distinctions, banned politics and politicians, -and made the war and the winning of it the only thing the nation eats -for, works for, dreams of, or wastes thought upon--then I shall feel -constrained to feel assured that victory will perch, however distant the -hour, on Liberty's and not on Tyranny's banners. The Anglo-German -endurance test--into which the war will eventually resolve itself--can -have but one issue. Germans know that. Their analytical mind long ago -taught them that the dormant resources of the British Empire, _once -mobilized_, would be invincible. But what is happening is precisely -what the Germans counted upon: the irresolute British habit of mind, the -"too late" system, the century-old cult of comfort and ease, the -"Splendid Isolation" school of thought, which, when the hour of trial -came, might be relied upon to cripple the effort to convert latent -potentialities into an inconquerable organism. History will have names -for all these things. It will call them Belgium, Serbia, Dardanelles -and Salonica. - -The British people must triumph over themselves before they can break -the Germans. Their inexhaustible moral and material assets must be -commandeered and husbanded, if they are to accomplish their manifest -destiny, and not merely be bragged about in the clubs of Pall Mall and -the ostrich-farms of Fleet Street. If the world-wide realm on which the -sun never sets can produce armies calculable only in millions, as it -most assuredly is able to do, let them come forth, or be brought forth. -If the wealth of the United Kingdom, India and the dominions oversea -represents riches unmatched, as it does, let it be lavished exclusively -on war, and not squandered in any other single direction. If common -sense is the proudest of Anglo-Saxon virtues, let it prevail and sweep -away governments which value votes more than men's lives and abolish a -Censorship which treats Britons as if they were half-witted. If there -must be calm at all costs, let it be the calm of high-pressure effort, -and not the coolness of impotent resignation or casual performance. If -faith must be placed in the efficacy of "attrition," let the process of -"bleeding Germany white" be hastened by British achievements afield, -lest "attrition," when the flags are furled, find the victor as -emaciated as the vanquished. - -I forget neither Germany's wrecked military hopes and economic -disintegration, nor the magnitude of Britain's service and -accomplishment thus far. I regret only, along with England's other -well-wishers, that her sacrifices have not resulted, as they so richly -deserved to, in advancing the British cause farther toward the goal. I -can not help thinking that, in many respects, it is wasted achievement, -for the object which England and her Allies have set themselves is not -merely the pinioning of Germany to fronts in Russia, France, Belgium and -Greece beyond which she can not thrust herself. I am not unmindful of -the glorious response of Britain's noblest sons, who sleep by their -gallant thousands in the blood-manured soil of France, Belgium, Turkey -and the Balkans, nor of the Trojan spirit in which the women of the -Empire are giving their best and bravest, and weeping not. I mourn only -because death and suffering leave triumph still so remote. The -remorselessness with which the Reaper has stalked through the great -families and homes of England is saddening, yet inspiring, evidence that -the heart of Britain is sound. The immortal deeds of the Grenfells and -the O'Learys and of all the one hundred thirty who have won Victoria -Crosses are only the outstanding tokens of undying British heroism. But -if sacrifice is not to continue to be cruelly in vain, there must be -relentless regeneration of the purely material governance of British -life, even more destructible of tradition and institutions than anything -which has gone before. Of bulldog British determination to fight to a -finish and to win there is no shadow of doubt. There is no Briton -worthy of the name not ready to be beggared to that end. The sublimity -of the cause for which England is bleeding is a more ennobling incentive -than ever, for it has come to comprehend life or death for herself, as -well as the liberation of Belgium. Spirituality has forfeited none of -its pristine efficacy as an asset in war and bulwark in stress, but in -our machine-gun era it must be backed by scientific efficiency and -patriotism of deed before there can be imposed upon Germany that peace -which is essential not only to British security, but to the world's -happiness. - - - - - FINIS - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ASSAULT *** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41252 - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one -owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and -you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission -and without paying copyright royalties. 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