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- float: left; - margin-right: 1em } - -.align-right { clear: right; - float: right; - margin-left: 1em } - -.align-center { margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto } - -div.shrinkwrap { display: table; } - -/* SECTIONS */ - -body { margin: 5% 10% 5% 10% } - -/* compact list items containing just one p */ -li p.pfirst { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0 } - -.first { margin-top: 0 !important; - text-indent: 0 !important } -.last { margin-bottom: 0 !important } - -span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 } -img.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; max-width: 25% } -span.dropspan { font-variant: small-caps } - -.no-page-break { page-break-before: avoid !important } - -/* PAGINATION */ - -@media screen { - .coverpage, .frontispiece, .titlepage, .verso, .dedication, .plainpage - { margin: 10% 0; } - - div.clearpage, div.cleardoublepage - { margin: 10% 0; border: none; border-top: 1px solid gray; } - - .vfill { margin: 5% 10% } -} - -@media print { - div.clearpage { page-break-before: always; padding-top: 10% } - div.cleardoublepage { page-break-before: right; padding-top: 10% } - - .vfill { margin-top: 20% } - h2.title { margin-top: 20% } -} - -</style> -<title>THE ASSAULT</title> -<meta name="PG.Rights" content="Public Domain" /> -<meta name="PG.Title" content="The Assault" /> -<meta name="PG.Producer" content="Al Haines" /> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/img-cover.jpg" /> -<meta name="DC.Creator" content="Frederic William Wile" /> -<meta name="DC.Created" content="1916" /> -<meta name="PG.Id" content="41252" /> -<meta name="PG.Released" content="2012-10-31" /> -<meta name="DC.Language" content="en" /> -<meta name="DC.Title" content="The Assault Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-Time" /> - -<link href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" rel="schema.DCTERMS" /> -<link href="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators" rel="schema.MARCREL" /> -<meta content="The Assault Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-Time" name="DCTERMS.title" /> -<meta content="assault.rst" name="DCTERMS.source" /> -<meta content="en" scheme="DCTERMS.RFC4646" name="DCTERMS.language" /> -<meta content="2012-10-31T21:36:46.149953+00:00" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.modified" /> -<meta content="Project Gutenberg" name="DCTERMS.publisher" /> -<meta content="Public Domain in the USA." name="DCTERMS.rights" /> -<link href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41252" rel="DCTERMS.isFormatOf" /> -<meta content="Frederic William Wile" name="DCTERMS.creator" /> -<meta content="2012-10-31" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.created" /> -<meta content="width=device-width" name="viewport" /> -<meta content="EpubMaker 0.3.20a2 by Marcello Perathoner <webmaster@gutenberg.org>" name="generator" /> -<style type="text/css"> -.pageno { position: absolute; right: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 } -.pageno:after { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' } -.lineno { position: absolute; left: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 } -.lineno:after { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' } -.toc-pageref { float: right } -pre { font-family: monospace; font-size: 0.9em; white-space: pre-wrap } -</style> -</head> -<body> -<div class="document" id="the-assault"> -<h1 class="center document-title level-1 pfirst title"><span class="x-large">THE ASSAULT</span></h1> - -<!-- this is the default PG-RST stylesheet --> -<!-- figure and image styles for non-image formats --> -<!-- default transition --> -<!-- default attribution --> -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="clearpage"> -</div> -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="align-None container language-en pgheader" id="pg-header" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<p class="noindent pfirst"><span>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 </span><a class="reference internal" href="#project-gutenberg-license">Project Gutenberg License</a><span> -included with this eBook or online at -</span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a><span>.</span></p> -<p class="noindent pnext"></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<div class="align-None container" id="pg-machine-header"> -<p class="noindent pfirst"><span>Title: The Assault<br />Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-Time<br /><br />Author: Frederic William Wile<br /><br />Release Date: October 31, 2012 [EBook #41252]<br /><br />Language: English<br /><br />Character set encoding: UTF-8</span></p> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-start-line"><span>*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK </span><span>THE ASSAULT</span><span> ***</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-produced-by"><span>Produced by Al Haines.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst"><span></span></p> -</div> -<div class="align-None container coverpage"> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 58%" id="figure-262"> -<img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-cover.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Cover</span></div> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -</div> -<div class="align-None container frontispiece"> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 66%" id="figure-263"> -<span id="ambassador-gerard"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-front.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Ambassador Gerard.</span></div> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -</div> -<div class="align-None container titlepage"> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="x-large">THE ASSAULT</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">Germany Before the Outbreak and<br />England in War-Time</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><em class="italics medium">A Personal Narrative</em></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">By<br />FREDERIC WILLIAM WILE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">Author of "Men Around the Kaiser"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND FACSIMILES OF<br />DOCUMENTS AND CARTOONS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">INDIANAPOLIS<br />THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -</div> -<div class="align-None container verso"> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">COPYRIGHT 1916<br />THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">PRESS OF<br />BRAUNWORTH & CO.<br />BOOK MANUFACTURERS<br />BROOKLYN, N. Y.</span></p> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<div class="align-None container dedication"> -<p class="center pfirst"><em class="italics medium">To</em><span class="medium"><br />AMBASSADOR AND MRS. GERARD</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">LIFE-SAVERS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IN GRATITUDE</span></p> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">INTRODUCTION</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span class="medium">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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Chicago -Daily News</em><span>. But in 1906 I became an international -complication, for it was then I joined the staff of the -</span><em class="italics">London Daily Mail</em><span>, which converted my status into -that of an </span><em class="italics">American</em><span> serving </span><em class="italics">British</em><span> journalistic -interests in </span><em class="italics">Germany</em><span>. 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 -</span><em class="italics">New York Times</em><span> and the </span><em class="italics">Chicago Tribune</em><span>. 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Daily Mail</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span>F. W. W.<br />London, December 20, 1915.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">CONTENTS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span>CHAPTER</span></p> -<ol class="upperroman simple"> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-curtain-raiser">The Curtain Raiser</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-first-act">The First Act</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-plot-develops">The Plot Develops</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-stage-managers">The Stage Managers</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#slow-music">Slow Music</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-climax">The Climax</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#war">War</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-americans">The Americans</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#august-fourth">August Fourth</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-war-reaches-me">The War Reaches Me</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-last-farewell">The Last Farewell</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#safe-conduct">Safe Conduct</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#complacency-rules-the-waves">Complacency Rules The Waves</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#pro-ally-uncle-sam">Pro-Ally Uncle Sam</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-helmsmen">The Helmsmen</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-general-the-admiral-and-the-king">The General, The Admiral and the King</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#your-king-and-country-want-you">"Your King And Country Want You"</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#war-in-the-dark">War in the Dark</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-internal-foe">The Internal Foe</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-empire-of-hate">The Empire of Hate</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-new-england">The New England</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#quo-vadis">Quo Vadis?</a></p> -</li> -</ol> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">New Introductory Chapter</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">HOW EUROPE VIEWS AMERICAN INTERVENTION</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the introduction to the original edition of </span><em class="italics">The -Assault</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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. </span><em class="italics">Jamais</em><span>! Americans would -rue the day they had sent back to the White House -the man who was now stabbing crucified democracy in -the back!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was about at this time, the end of 1916, that an -American colleague, Edward Price Bell, of </span><em class="italics">The -Chicago Daily News</em><span>, set forth in the columns of </span><em class="italics">The -Times</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe that Wilson wants to go to war," Bell -wrote to </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> -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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The -Times</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> 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." </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">The Times'</em><span> -counsel was being taken widely to heart.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>On February 27 Bell craved the indulgence of </span><em class="italics">The -Times</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">vox populi</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Berliner Tageblatt</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">savants</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">leitmotif</em><span> of hundreds of cartoons, -caricatures and jokes was that the "American money power" -had "dragged" us into the war. </span><em class="italics">Simplicissimus</em><span> -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Cologne Gazette</em><span> bade Germans to continue to pin -their faith in "our best allies," </span><em class="italics">i.e.</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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. </span><em class="italics">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</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>London, June 28, 1917.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-curtain-raiser"><span class="x-large">THE ASSAULT</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">CHAPTER I</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE CURTAIN RAISER</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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, -</span><em class="italics">Bismarck</em><span>!" and the milky foam of the </span><em class="italics">Schaumwein</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, Deutschland, über -Alles</em><span>. Half a minute later the </span><em class="italics">Bismarck</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Heil Dir im Siegeskranz</em><span>, and the last -fête Hamburg was destined to know for many a -troublous month had passed into history.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">its</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Bismarck</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Bismarck</em><span> 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?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Bismarck</em><span> was timed accordingly. -From Hamburg the Emperor proceeds aboard the -Imperial yacht </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> 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. </span><em class="italics">Victoria Luise</em><span>, for it included Mr. John Walter, -one of the hereditary proprietors of </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span>, and -several other distinguished Englishmen soon to be -Germany's hated foes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Enchantress</em><span>, 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 -</span><em class="italics">fait accompli</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Enchantress</em><span> would make fast in the -harbor of Kiel Bay.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 86%" id="figure-264"> -<span id="watching-for-the-kaiser-s-armada"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-004.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Watching for the Kaiser's Armada.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>But Mr. Churchill did not come. I know why. -Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz, to whom the half-American -</span><em class="italics">enfant terrible</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">modus vivendi</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-first-act"><span class="large">CHAPTER II</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE FIRST ACT</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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 </span><em class="italics">King George V</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The Kaiser was inspecting </span><em class="italics">his</em><span> 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, </span><em class="italics">King -George V, Audacious, Centurion</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Ajax</em><span> and the -three fast "light cruisers" </span><em class="italics">Birmingham, Southampton</em><span> -and </span><em class="italics">Nottingham</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Birmingham</em><span> in action against German warships off -Heligoland within ten short weeks, or of the -</span><em class="italics">Audacious</em><span> at the bottom of the Irish Sea, victim of a -German mine, five months later?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">Centurion</em><span> in honor of the War Lord, -whispered audibly to a mate, as the </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> -steamed down the line to her anchorage, "Say, Bill, -don't he look jest like Gawd!" Perhaps the -Divinely-Anointed felt that way, too.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When the Kaiser had left the </span><em class="italics">King George V</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">King George V</em><span>" (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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," continued the Kaiser, who is a genial -conversationalist and </span><em class="italics">raconteur</em><span>, "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 </span><em class="italics">Meteor</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">Meteor</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">King George V's</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Ajax</em><span> gave a music-hall -smoker in honor of the crew of the big battle-cruiser -</span><em class="italics">Seydlitz</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> and Vice-Admiral Warrender -returned the fire with state banquets aboard the </span><em class="italics">King -George V</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">Sunbeam</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span>, the Kaiser chuckled -jovially at Lord Brassey's expense. England's -greatest living marine historian stole away from Kiel with -the </span><em class="italics">Sunbeam</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 97%" id="figure-265"> -<span id="a-naval-zeppelin-cruising-over-the-british-squadron-at-kiel"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-014.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">A naval Zeppelin cruising over the British squadron at Kiel.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-plot-develops"><span class="large">CHAPTER III</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE PLOT DEVELOPS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">ausser Dienst</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Frau -Hafenmcistcr's</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you mean by taking my bath?" he yelled -at me. "That's some of your damned American impudence!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Dachshund</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife have -been assassinated," he exclaimed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good God!" I rejoined, stupefied.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a good thing," said von G. quietly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a good thing," said the sententious von G.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Sleipner</em><span> tore -through the Bay, Baltic-bound. She carries news to -William II when he governs Germany from the -quarter-deck of the </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span>. </span><em class="italics">Sleipner</em><span> 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, -</span><em class="italics">Meteor V</em><span>, which had broken off her race on receipt -of wireless tidings of the Archducal couple's -murderous fate. The </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> had already -"wirelessed" for the fastest torpedo-boat in port to fetch -the Kaiser and his staff off the </span><em class="italics">Meteor</em><span>, and the -destroyer and </span><em class="italics">Sleipner</em><span> snorted up, foam-bespattered, -almost simultaneously. The Emperor clambered into -the torpedo-boat and started for the harbor.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">King George V</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">Utowana</em><span>, Mr. Allison -Vincent Armour's steam-yacht, anchored in the -Bay off Kiel Naval Academy. A puffing little launch -took me out to the </span><em class="italics">Utowana</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>These things we chatted and canvassed, irresponsibly, -on </span><em class="italics">Utowana's</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.'"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">mise en scène</em><span>. A week of gaiety -unsurpassed evaporated into gloom and foreboding.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">persona gratissima</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">soirees</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">naïveté</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Give us his name," commanded Lord Cheylesmore, -presiding officer of the court.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I will write his name on a piece of paper for the -court's confidential information," Lody added. His -request was granted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>On Monday noon, June 29, I went back to Berlin, -to live through five weeks of finishing touches for -the grand world blood-bath.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-stage-managers"><span class="large">CHAPTER IV</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE STAGE MANAGERS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">not</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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. -</span><em class="italics">They</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Frau Generalstabschef</em><span> was in a state of obvious -mental excitement.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Ach</em><span>, what a day I've been through, </span><em class="italics">Kinder</em><span>!" 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!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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." </span><em class="italics">Die -Post</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Panther</em><span> 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. </span><em class="italics">I did not will this war</em><span>. One -year has elapsed since I was </span><em class="italics">obliged</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Frau Generalstabschef</em><span> von Moltke -on the stand as chief witness in the Kaiser's defense.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>I have said that sixty-six million Germans wanted -peace and one million five hundred thousand demanded -war. But in Germany </span><em class="italics">minority</em><span> rules. It rules -supreme when the issue is war or peace, and when the -German War Party </span><em class="italics">insisted</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">Germany's Next War</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">authoritativeness</em><span>. The result was the -translation of </span><em class="italics">Germany's Next War</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Die Post</em><span>, the </span><em class="italics">Deutsche Tageszeitung</em><span> -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Furor Teutonicus</em><span> 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. -</span><em class="italics">Nouveau riche</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Leit-motif</em><span>. "We, not the Jews, are God's chosen people. -Our military prowess and our intellectual superiority -make German </span><em class="italics">Weltmacht</em><span> manifest destiny. Full -steam ahead!" Thus it was, a generation ago, that -the German War Party was launched on its mad career.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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":</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">importer</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">annual</em><span> -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 -</span><em class="italics">one-half of one per cent.</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">J'Accuse</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">suaviter in modo</em><span>, but no less -</span><em class="italics">fortiter in re</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Count Reventlow, a Jingo of Jingoes, rendered both -the navy and army leagues valiant support in the -columns of his newspaper, the </span><em class="italics">Deutsche Tageszeitung</em><span>, -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 </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> massacre, but it was pathological.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Weltpolitik</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">Wirklicher Geheimrat</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">entente</em><span>. The War Party and von Tirpitz said "No!" And -Armageddon became as inevitable as the setting sun.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">rattle</em><span> 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, </span><em class="italics">Germany in Arms</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">finale</em><span>.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="slow-music"><span class="large">CHAPTER V</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">SLOW MUSIC</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Hofburg</em><span> -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>On Monday, July 6, William's "lumbago" having -yielded to treatment, there was sprung one of the most -dramatic of all the </span><em class="italics">coups</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> steamed away to the fjords -of Norway with the Kaiser and his customary -company of congenial spirits. The Government-controlled -</span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger</em><span> 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, </span><em class="italics">lieb' Vaterland mag -ruhig sein</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> had hardly slipped out of Baltic -waters when Vienna's "diplomatic </span><em class="italics">demarche</em><span>" 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 </span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger</em><span> "admitted" that -things were beginning to look as if "Germany will -again have to prove her Nibelung loyalty," </span><em class="italics">i.e.</em><span>, in -support of Austria, as during the other Bosnian crisis, in -1909.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Daily Mail</em><span> in London and the </span><em class="italics">New -York Times</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">al fresco</em><span> -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 -</span><em class="italics">Sommerfrische</em><span>. </span><em class="italics">Herr Bankdirektor</em><span> Meyer and </span><em class="italics">Herr</em><span> -and </span><em class="italics">Frau Rechtsanwalt</em><span> Salzmann were a good deal -more interested in the food at the </span><em class="italics">Logierhaus</em><span> they had -selected for themselves and the </span><em class="italics">kinder</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Highly instructive now were the recriminations -going on in the German, Austrian and Serbian press. -Belgrade denied that reserves had been called up. The -</span><em class="italics">North German Gazette</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">European</em><span> -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"?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Daily Mail</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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" (</span><em class="italics">Anglice</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">esprit de corps</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"'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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I am able to state authoritatively that the </span><em class="italics">casus -foederis</em><span> 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]</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="smaller">[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 </span><em class="italics smaller">casus foederis</em><span class="smaller"> 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="medium">"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'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.'</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.'</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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 -</span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> in the fjords of Norway, but he can -reach German waters in twenty-four hours aboard the -speedy dispatch-boat </span><em class="italics">Sleipner</em><span>, which is attached to -the Imperial squadron.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.'"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-climax"><span class="large">CHAPTER VI</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE CLIMAX</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger's</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Krieg! Krieg!</em><span>" (War! War!) it thundered. -"</span><em class="italics">Nieder mit Serbien! Hoch, Oesterreich!</em><span>" (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--</span><em class="italics">Gott erhalte -Franz den Kaiser</em><span> (God Save Emperor Francis), the -Austrian national anthem. Then shouts, yelled in the -accents of imprecation--"</span><em class="italics">Nieder mit Russland!</em><span>" -(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 </span><em class="italics">Unter -den Linden</em><span>. 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 "</span><em class="italics">manifestation</em><span>." 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Hochs</em><span> 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. "</span><em class="italics">Krieg! Krieg!</em><span>" the war mongers -chanted in ecstatic shrieks. Then "</span><em class="italics">Deutschland, -Deutschland über Alles</em><span>," 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Vienna breathed a long, sincere sigh of relief. She -had feared the worst from the moment Count -Berchtold dispatched </span><em class="italics">the Berlin-dictated ultimatum</em><span> to -Belgrade; but the worst was over now. Serbian penitence -had saved Austrian face.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, what are you saying?" the editor inquired. -"That it's peace, after all," replied the correspondent.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It </span><em class="italics">was</em><span> peace," said the editor sadly, "but meantime -Berlin has spoken."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span>* * * * *</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Hohenzollern</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span> while he talked. Another procession -of war-zealots tramped by, singing </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, -Deutschland über Alles</em><span>. "You see," he said, pointing -to the demonstrators and waving his own hat as the -crowd shrieked "</span><em class="italics">Hoch der Kaiser!</em><span>", "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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">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</em><span>."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger</em><span> 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!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The good "</span><em class="italics">Lokal's</em><span>" 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 </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span>. Through it, now </span><em class="italics">Oberster -Kriegsherr</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Hochs</em><span> greeted him all along the -</span><em class="italics">Via Triumphalis</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The Imperial show, smacking strongly of William's -own stage management, had only begun, for now the -Crown Prince's familiar motor signal, </span><em class="italics">Ta-tee, Ta-ta</em><span>, -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 </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">freudestrahlend</em><span> (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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 89%" id="figure-266"> -<span id="soldiers-in-the-making-aiming-practice"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-076.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Soldiers in the making--aiming practice</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Hochs</em><span> were rewarded. -Surrounded by the members of his family, the Kaiser -appeared at the balcony window facing the Cathedral -across the </span><em class="italics">Lustgarten</em><span> (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:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Berlin went to bed on the night of July 31 hoarse -with </span><em class="italics">Hoching</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="war"><span class="large">CHAPTER VII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">WAR</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">German -Military Gazette</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">how</em><span> ready Germany was for -eventualities, said, sententiously, "</span><em class="italics">All</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">any</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The afternoon passed in almost insufferable -anxiety. </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span> and the </span><em class="italics">Lustgarten</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">New York World</em><span> and -</span><em class="italics">London Daily News</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">aide-de-camp</em><span>. 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 -</span><em class="italics">Schloss</em><span> almost unnoticed. Now instinctively certain -of the nature of Bethmann Hollweg's errand, Tower -and I made our way to the </span><em class="italics">Lustgarten</em><span>, since early -morning an endless vista of faces stretching nearly all -the way from the Dom to the Brandenburg Gate end -of </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">Extrablätter</em><span> containing the -fateful tidings:</span></p> -<pre class="literal-block"> -<span>+----------------------------------+ -| | -| "UNIVERSAL MOBILIZATION OF THE | -| GERMAN ARMY AND NAVY!" | -| | -+----------------------------------+</span> -</pre> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Extrablatt</em><span> a German newspaper ever issued, would be -the first mobilization day. All Sunday, Monday and -Tuesday the </span><em class="italics">Furor Teutonicus</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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....</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 96%" id="figure-267"> -<span id="in-front-of-the-royal-castle-berlin-waiting-for-announcement-of-mobilization-august-1st-1914"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-084.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">In front of the Royal Castle, Berlin, waiting for announcement of mobilization, August 1st, 1914.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Unter -den Linden</em><span> and the </span><em class="italics">Lustgarten</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"Up to 4 o'clock this morning the Great -General Staff has received the following reports:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"According to the above, Russia has attacked -German Imperial territory and begun the war."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The "Russian mobilization menace" was now an -accomplished fact, and the Cossack bogy, too, converted -into an officially hall-marked actuality!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">his</em><span> walking-papers? So far rowdies had yelled -</span><em class="italics">Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles</em><span> 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?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The -Times</em><span>--the </span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily News, -Westminster Gazette</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">The Nation</em><span>. No intimation -was permitted to reach the German public that voices -like </span><em class="italics">The Times, The Observer, The Daily Mail, The -Morning Post</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Daily Telegraph</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">the entire population</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">carte-blanche</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Extrablätter</em><span>. A "Russian spy" had been -caught in </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> -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. </span><em class="italics">Kultur</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Niederländisches Dankgebet</em><span>, the famous -hymn which proclaimed at Waterloo a century before -the end of the Napoleonic terror.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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!"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-americans"><span class="large">CHAPTER VIII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE AMERICANS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How long are you remaining in Germany?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">New York Times, Philadelphia -Public Ledger</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Chicago Tribune</em><span>--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 </span><em class="italics">Daily Mail</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">bête noire</em><span>, would have -automatically to cease.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In Ambassador Gerard, as ever, I found a ready -supporter of my plans. He recognized, as I did, that -a "</span><em class="italics">Daily Mail</em><span> 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, </span><em class="italics">Men Around the Kaiser</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">Männer um den Kaiser</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The Ambassador suggested, in the always practical -way of American diplomacy, that I should assemble -for him a </span><em class="italics">dossier</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Ausländer</em><span> should "legitimatize" themselves.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Arabic</em><span> insult -was after all swallowed as the </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">represent</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">magnum cum laude</em><span>.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 70%" id="figure-268"> -<span id="mrs-gerard"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-104.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Mrs. Gerard.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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 </span><em class="italics">savoir faire</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Macht-politik</em><span>, -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 </span><em class="italics">Auswärtiges Amt</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">bonhomie</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">finesse</em><span> -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!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Get Out and -Get Under</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="august-fourth"><span class="large">CHAPTER IX</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">AUGUST FOURTH</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">Gott sei Dank</em><span>, 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!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -"</span><em class="italics">hoched</em><span>." The atmosphere was </span><em class="italics">stimmungsvoller</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span> was echoing with -</span><em class="italics">Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles</em><span>, and I knew that -the Fatherland was at war.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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. "</span><em class="italics">Es wird schon gut, -Mütterchen! Es wird schon gut!</em><span>" (It will be all -right, mother dear! It will be all right!) Thus they -returned comfort for tears. </span><em class="italics">"Nicht unterliegen! -Besser nicht zurückkehren!</em><span>" (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. "</span><em class="italics">Auf wiedersehen!</em><span>" 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 </span><em class="italics">unsere gerechte Sache</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">persona -gratissima</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">Denkschrift</em><span>, -and, when I begged him for a second one, he complied -with a gracious </span><em class="italics">bitte sehr</em><span>.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">ex-parté</em><span> character--how </span><em class="italics">ex-parté</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.... -</span><em class="italics">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</em><span>. 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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was my privilege on arriving in the United States -on August 22, to furnish the </span><em class="italics">New York Times</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">primâ-facie</em><span> evidence that the German claim of -non-collusion with Austria is subterfuge--to give it the -longer and less unparliamentary term.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">Yellow Book</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span> -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....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The World</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Daily News</em><span>, 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 -</span><em class="italics">Newyorker-Staatszeitung</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Le Temps</em><span>, Caro, of </span><em class="italics">Le Matin</em><span>, -and Bonnefon, of </span><em class="italics">Le Figaro</em><span>, 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?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Doctor Paul Goldmann, </span><em class="italics">doyén</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Neue Freie Presse</em><span>. The -British and American contingents were on hand in force. -Never had we waited for a </span><em class="italics">Kanzlerrede</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Pressloge</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Goteborg Tidningen</em><span>, 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. "</span><em class="italics">Sehr richtig! Sehr richtig!</em><span>" 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Supposing the Belgians resist?" I asked Schmidt, -of the </span><em class="italics">B. Z. am Mittag</em><span>, a German colleague whom I -once christened Berlin's "star" reporter, as we -wandered, thinking hard, back to </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span>.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Resist?" he replied, half pitying the feeble-mindedness -which prompted such a question. "We shall -simply spill them into the ocean."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-war-reaches-me"><span class="large">CHAPTER X</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE WAR REACHES ME</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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 </span><em class="italics">New-Yorker Staatszeitung</em><span>. -But nine times out of ten his counsel and -information were like Cæsar'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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Stimmungsmacher</em><span> -(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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span>. -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 </span><em class="italics">London Times</em><span> (like my own -paper, </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span>, 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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"Chancellor just delivered importantest speech -Reichstag. As communication England unlonger -possible suggest your cabling Newyorks news."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">en masse</em><span> 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-</span><em class="italics">de-luxe</em><span> 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!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">aide-de-camp</em><span> whom a field-marshal might have envied....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Tageblatt</em><span> "Extra" -which, they said, was just out. I fairly snatched at it. -This is what it said:</span></p> -<pre class="literal-block"> -<span>+------------------------------------------------+ -| | -| 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! | -| | -+------------------------------------------------+</span> -</pre> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Extrablatt</em><span>, over and over again. -"Joe" Grew came hurrying up in his automobile. He, -too, had the </span><em class="italics">Tageblatt</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 62%" id="figure-269"> -<span id="berlin-mob-attacking-british-embassy-on-the-night-of-aug-4-1914-drawn-for-the-illustrated-london-news-from-a-description-by-the-author"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-134.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Berlin Mob Attacking British Embassy on the night of Aug. 4, 1914. (Drawn for the Illustrated London News from a description by the author.)</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Rule, Britannia!</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Kultur</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 61%" id="figure-270"> -<span id="extra-edition-of-berliner-tageblatt-announcing-war-with-england"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-135.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Extra Edition of </span><em class="italics">Berliner Tageblatt</em><span class="italics"> Announcing War With England</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>I dashed up to my room to write a dispatch to </span><em class="italics">The -Times</em><span> in New York and </span><em class="italics">The Tribune</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger</em><span> "extra" was now available, with this -"cooked" summary of the events which had -precipitated the climacteric decision:</span></p> -<pre class="literal-block"> -<span>+----------------------------------------------------+ -| | -| 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. | -| | -+----------------------------------------------------+</span> -</pre> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Kultur's</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>While at work on my dispatches in my hotel room--it -was now about nine o'clock--I could hear </span><em class="italics">Unter -den Linden</em><span> below my windows roaring with mob fury -against Britain. "</span><em class="italics">Krämer-volk!</em><span>" (Peddler nation!) -"</span><em class="italics">Rassen-Verrat!</em><span>" (Race treachery!) "</span><em class="italics">Nieder mit -England!</em><span>" (Down with England!) "</span><em class="italics">Tod den -Engländer!</em><span>" (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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, "</span><em class="italics">Englischer Spion! Nach Spandau mit ihm!</em><span>" -(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 "</span><em class="italics">Englischer Hund!</em><span>" (English dog!) "</span><em class="italics">Schiesst -den Spion!</em><span>" (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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 60%" id="figure-271"> -<span id="facsimile-of-original-denunciation-of-the-author-as-an-english-spy"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-143.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Facsimile of Original Denunciation of the Author as an "English Spy"</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Men Around the Kaiser</em><span>, -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. "</span><em class="italics">Es wird -schon gut sein.</em><span>" Which in real language means that -"everything will be all right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You are an American, eh?" ejaculated one of -them. "I wonder if you know my brother in -Minnesota? His name is Paul Richter."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Schutzmann</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Engländer</em><span>. This Tower (he called it -Toever, which was the way Germans used phonetically to -pronounce a former American ambassador's name) is -the notorious </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> correspondent!" Tower -impetuously denied this soft impeachment, and pointed out -that instead of being the Thunderer's representative, -he was the correspondent of the </span><em class="italics">Daily News</em><span>, "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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> as -</span><em class="italics">deutschfreundlich</em><span>, or, I regretfully mused, it might be -the means of saving my neck.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"My wife's condition has become critical, and -physicians recommend immediate departure if catastrophe -is to be avoided."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Polizei-Präsidium</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Unter den Linden</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Schutzmann</em><span> friend, "Well, we're here now."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The details of what happened in the big room of -the Police-Presidency into which we were now ushered--my -friend Simons, of the </span><em class="italics">Amsterdam Telegraaf</em><span>, and -Nevinson, special correspondent of </span><em class="italics">The Daily News</em><span>, -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-last-farewell"><span class="large">CHAPTER XI</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE LAST FAREWELL</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 "</span><em class="italics">Aber, Herr Wile!</em><span>"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">dementia</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>I now ran across von Wiegand of the </span><em class="italics">United Press</em><span> -(as he then was) and Swing, of the </span><em class="italics">Chicago Daily -News</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> Heilbron and -get an </span><em class="italics">Ausweiskarte</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily -Telegraph</em><span>, had been fortunate enough, only a few days -previous, to get to Russia. Ford, of </span><em class="italics">The Morning Post</em><span>, -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 </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At five o'clock, the customary hour for newspaper -men to visit the Foreign Office, I went to call on -</span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> Heilbron. He had not yet come in, so I sent -my card to his colleague, </span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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. </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span>! -How graphically succeeding events were to bear it out!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After </span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> Esternaux had fired this -high-explosive, he ushered me out, and I knocked on -</span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> Heilbron's door, fifteen yards farther down -the passageway. Fur-mittens and ear-muffs are not -</span><em class="italics">de rigueur</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> than the one (Esternaux) whose presence I -had just quitted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Herr Legationsrat</em><span>," I began, "I have come to ask -you for an </span><em class="italics">Ausweiskarte</em><span>. 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mobs are mobs," he rejoined. "I can do nothing -for you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That is strange," I interposed. "Surely you know -that the American Ambassador has arranged for my -remaining in Germany?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I know nothing about that whatever," said Heilbron.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, </span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> Esternaux does," I retorted, -"because he told me so not five minutes ago, and he -said you would issue the necessary credentials."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It is just as I thought. The Foreign Office can do -nothing for you. If you want credentials, you must -apply to the police."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But, </span><em class="italics">Herr Legationsrat</em><span>," 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Daily Mail</em><span> man--nothing else. You are -known everywhere as such. Certainly if you remain -here, your position will undoubtedly be a precarious one."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">persona grata</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>No home was ever deserted, I am sure, more -reluctantly or so precipitately as my little </span><em class="italics">ménage</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Herr Direktor</em><span> Kretschmar, of the Hotel Adlon, -has come to see you," announced </span><em class="italics">Fräulein</em><span>.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 "</span><em class="italics">mein lieber Freund -Wile</em><span>" 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 </span><em class="italics">Unter -den Linden</em><span>--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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Herren Adlon</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">peccavi</em><span>, -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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, </span><em class="italics">mein -Herr</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A weepy good-by scene with </span><em class="italics">Fräulein</em><span>, a parting, -lingering look around my beloved </span><em class="italics">Arbeitszimmer</em><span>--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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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 </span><em class="italics">nouveau riche</em><span> -German industrial tribes to be ennobled. I could only -think that, like the Berlin police, </span><em class="italics">Legationsrat</em><span> -Heilbron, </span><em class="italics">Herr Direktor</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Dachshund</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 65%" id="figure-272"> -<span id="ambassador-gerard-s-note"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-169.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Ambassador Gerard's Note</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">suite-de-luxe</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">Auf Wiedersehen</em><span> I had from -"Molly" Gerard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Auf Wiedersehen</em><span> in the "American -bar" of the Hotel Kaiserhof, round the corner from -the Embassy, where I noticed Doctor Dernburg, -August Stein, of the </span><em class="italics">Frankfurter Zeitung</em><span>, and Doctor -Fuchs, of the Deutsche Bank, gathered dolefully round -a beer-table, and amazed, no doubt, to find Krause in -such doubtful company.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Chicago Daily -News</em><span>, and Feibelman, of the </span><em class="italics">New York Tribune</em><span> and -</span><em class="italics">London Express</em><span>. 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....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 55%" id="figure-273"> -<span id="facsimile-of-the-pass"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-173.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Facsimile of the Pass</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">Kultur</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="safe-conduct"><span class="large">CHAPTER XII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">SAFE CONDUCT</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Lehrter Bahnhof, the gateway through which -so many American tourists have passed out -of Berlin en route to Hamburg or Bremen -steamers, was not </span><em class="italics">en fête</em><span> in honor of the departing -</span><em class="italics">Engländer</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">God Save the King</em><span>, -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Auf Wiedersehen</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">adieu</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">leitmotif</em><span> -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Engländer</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The journalist-refugees consisted of Mackenzie and -Jelf of </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span>, Tower and Nevinson of </span><em class="italics">The Daily -News</em><span>, Long of </span><em class="italics">The Westminster Gazette</em><span>, Lawrence -of Reuter's Agency, Byles of </span><em class="italics">The Standard</em><span>, Dudley -Ward, of the </span><em class="italics">Manchester Guardian</em><span> and his newly-wed -German wife, and Muirhead, the "camera man" of </span><em class="italics">The -Daily Chronicle</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 96%" id="figure-274"> -<span id="berlin-newspaper-refugees-on-s-s-st-petersburg-from-left-to-right-standing-muirhead-wile-jelf-lawrence-nevinson-captain-deedes-dudley-ward-seated-mackenzie"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-180.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Berlin newspaper refugees on S. S. St. Petersburg. From left to right, standing: Muirhead; Wile; Jelf; Lawrence; Nevinson; Captain Deedes; Dudley Ward. Seated, Mackenzie.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Oberstleutnant</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Bummelzug</em><span> -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Mein Herren</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Singvereine</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Die -Wacht am Rhein</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, Deutschland über -Alles</em><span> 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, </span><em class="italics">Die Wacht am Rhein</em><span> -and </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Wiener-Schnitzel</em><span>, for, while the -</span><em class="italics">Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles</em><span> was doing its -worst, he remarked, cheerily, to his Belgian colleague: -"Rather fine singing, isn't it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Next to the songs which knew no ending the most -conspicuous manifestation of </span><em class="italics">Furor Teutonicus</em><span> 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!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, -Deutschland über Alles</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Die Wacht am -Rhein</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, Deutschland -über Alles</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Die Wacht am Rhein</em><span>. 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 -</span><em class="italics">Marching through Georgia</em><span>--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 -</span><em class="italics">Marching through Georgia</em><span>. That is what </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, -Deutschland über Alles</em><span> made me think about Armageddon.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 66%" id="figure-275"> -<span id="sir-edward-goschen-late-british-ambassador-in-berlin-boarding-s-s-st-petersburg-en-route-to-london-august-7th-1914"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-188.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Sir Edward Goschen, late British Ambassador in Berlin, boarding S. S. St. Petersburg, en route to London, August 7th, 1914.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Konigin Luise</em><span>, within -eighteen hours of the declaration of hostilities, </span><em class="italics">i.e.</em><span>, on -Wednesday, August 5, was overtaken by the British -destroyer </span><em class="italics">Lance</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Amphion</em><span> struck a mine planted by the </span><em class="italics">Konigin -Luise</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The Hook was ready for us, we were told. The -Great Eastern steamer </span><em class="italics">St. Petersburg</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">St. Petersburg</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">St. Petersburg</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">was</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">St. Petersburg</em><span>, -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: -"</span><em class="italics">That's</em><span> all right!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">our</em><span> Ambassador home from the -enemy's country; whereupon </span><em class="italics">The Daily News</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="complacency-rules-the-waves"><span class="large">CHAPTER XIII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">COMPLACENCY RULES THE WAVES</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">never</em><span> "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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Geist</em><span>, 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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>1. To protect the defenseless French coast against -attack by the German navy;</span></p> -<ol class="arabic simple" start="2"> -<li><p class="first pfirst"><span>To defend the integrity of Belgium; and</span></p> -</li> -</ol> -<p class="pfirst"><span>3. To put forth all Britain's strength and not run -away from the obligations of honor and interest.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">i.e.</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 91%" id="figure-276"> -<span id="germans-anxious-to-fly-from-england-remarkable-scenes-were-witnessed-outside-the-american-consulate-thousands-of-germans-clamoring-for-passage-back-to-germany"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-200.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Germans Anxious to Fly from England. Remarkable scenes were witnessed outside the American Consulate, thousands of Germans clamoring for passage back to Germany.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">élan</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">The Kaiser's -Last Will and Testament</em><span>. 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....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<pre class="literal-block"> -<span> 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</span> -</pre> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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:</span></p> -<pre class="literal-block"> -<span>+------------------------------------------------------------------+ -| | -| 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! | -| | -+------------------------------------------------------------------+</span> -</pre> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Mauretania</em><span>, with her </span><em class="italics">suites de-luxe</em><span> -battered into cargo-room for Tommy Atkins, and her big -new sister, </span><em class="italics">Aquitania</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Each mother's son of them carried with him this -little personal message from Lord Kitchener:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span>"Do your duty bravely.<br />"Fear God.<br />"Honour the King.<br />"KITCHENER, Field-Marshal."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> 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, </span><em class="italics">S.S. Campania</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="pro-ally-uncle-sam"><span class="large">CHAPTER XIV</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">PRO-ALLY UNCLE SAM</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Somewhere in E. W. Hornung's </span><em class="italics">Raffles</em><span>, -there is this homely bit of epigrammatic philosophy:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Money lost, little lost. Honor lost, much lost. -Pluckiest, all lost!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The aphorism was paraphrased by my fellow war -refugees in the </span><em class="italics">Campania</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They made it read like this:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Baggage lost, all lost!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">chefs</em><span> at home, -who sat uncomplainingly through the interminable and -usually refrigerated "second serving" in the -</span><em class="italics">Campania's</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Campania's</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Aquitania</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Campania's</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">Campania</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>On Monday, August 24, I was lunching at the Ritz-Carlton -Hotel. Bernstorff had landed that forenoon in -the Dutch liner, </span><em class="italics">Noordam</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Smiling his most persuasive diplomatic grimace, -Count Bernstorff went straight to the object of his -luncheon-table call on me.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Wile," he began, "you've gone back on us! I can -see your hand at work in the attitude the </span><em class="italics">New York -Times</em><span> has taken up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>I could not imagine at what the genial Count was -driving. Perhaps he had read in the preceding day's -</span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> my long account of the beginnings of the war as -I observed them in Berlin, or my introduction to </span><em class="italics">The -Times'</em><span> exclusive publication of the German White -Paper, printed that day.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Your Excellency flatters me," I ventured to rejoin. -"I have only been in the country since Saturday night, -and my activities at </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> office have been limited -to the very prosaic duty of handing in several wads of -'copy' written aboard-ship."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">The Times'</em><span> able proprietor, -and Mr. Miller, its brilliant editor, and said he -was going to see somebody or other at </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">New York -Times</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Noordam</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Nachrichten-Abteilung</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">Deutschland</em><span> and -</span><em class="italics">Braunschweig</em><span> class into an armada of dreadnoughts and -battle cruisers of the eighteen-thousand to -twenty-four-thousand-ton "all-big-gun" </span><em class="italics">Ost-Friesland</em><span> and -</span><em class="italics">Seydlitz</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">leitmotif</em><span>,--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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Nassau</em><span>, but -during his career at the Admiralty he more than made up -for that by enabling me, in the columns of </span><em class="italics">The Daily -Mail</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Fatherland</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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, </span><em class="italics">The -Fatherland's</em><span> vituperations, the </span><em class="italics">New-Yorker Staatszeitung's</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, -Deutschland über Alles</em><span> more than disputing -supremacy with </span><em class="italics">Rule Britannia</em><span>. In Chicago pro-Germanism -was rampant and articulate. An article written by -me for the </span><em class="italics">Chicago Tribune</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Berliner Tageblatt</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-helmsmen"><span class="large">CHAPTER XV</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE HELMSMEN</span></p> -<!-- --> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="line"><span>"We don't want to fight,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>But, by Jingo! if we do,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>We've got the men,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>We've got the ships,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>And we've got the money, too!"</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Tipperary</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">carte -blanche</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">real</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 66%" id="figure-277"> -<span id="herbert-henry-asquith"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-230.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Herbert Henry Asquith.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">bête noire</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Trinkgeld</em><span> (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 </span><em class="italics">need</em><span> more oversea territory; -she only </span><em class="italics">hankered</em><span> 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?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Anglice</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 67%" id="figure-278"> -<span id="lloyd-george"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-236.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Lloyd-George.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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," </span><em class="italics">U9</em><span> sent the </span><em class="italics">Cressy, Hague</em><span> and -</span><em class="italics">Aboukir</em><span> 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]</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="smaller">[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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="medium">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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 65%" id="figure-279"> -<span id="kitchener"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-242.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Kitchener.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-general-the-admiral-and-the-king"><span class="large">CHAPTER XVI</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE GENERAL, THE ADMIRAL AND THE KING</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 68%" id="figure-280"> -<span id="sir-john-french"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-246.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Sir John French.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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]</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="smaller">[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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="medium">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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Victoria</em><span>, 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!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Speaking of Admiral Jellicoe, the Archbishop said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 66%" id="figure-281"> -<span id="sir-j-r-jellicoe"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-252.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Sir J. R. Jellicoe.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Vaterland</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">morale</em><span> is unbroken.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">overplaying</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 66%" id="figure-282"> -<span id="king-george-v"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-258.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">King George V.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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?</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="your-king-and-country-want-you"><span class="large">CHAPTER XVII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">YOUR KING AND COUNTRY WANT YOU</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He expected his British superior fairly to jump for -joy. But this is what he said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Quite so. But don't you think that will be a bit -conspicuous?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Campania</em><span> -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 -</span><em class="italics">Aboukir, Cressy</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Hogue</em><span> in the Channel by the </span><em class="italics">U9</em><span> -and </span><em class="italics">Weddigen</em><span>, with cruelly heavy sacrifice of British -lives.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">U9's</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Tipperary</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 90%" id="figure-283"> -<span id="kitchener-s-army"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-268.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Kitchener's army</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail's</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Chicago -Daily News</em><span>, Ernest Marshall of the </span><em class="italics">New York Times</em><span>, -or James M. Tuohy of the </span><em class="italics">New York World</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 58%" id="figure-284"> -<span id="questions-to-those-who-employ-male-servants"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-273.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">5 Questions to those who employ male servants</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span>TO ARMS! RALLY ROUND THE FLAG!<br />TO ARMS! YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!<br />TO ARMS! ENLIST AT ONCE FOR THE WAR ONLY!</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>or</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span>TO-DAY, YOUNG MAN, YOU ARE NEEDED<br />TO FIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTRY'S DEFENSE!<br />FALL IN! JOIN THE ARMY AT ONCE!</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>or</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span>MEN OF BRITAIN, UPHOLD YOUR COUNTRY'S<br />HONOR AND LIBERTY! SERVE WITH<br />YOUR FRIENDS!</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>or you would read what the King had said:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span>"NO PRICE CAN BE TOO HIGH WHEN<br />HONOR AND LIBERTY ARE AT STAKE."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 59%" id="figure-285"> -<span id="questions-to-the-women-of-england"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-276.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">4 Questions to the Women of England</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">prima -facie</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">de rigueur</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 67%" id="figure-286"> -<span id="to-the-warriors-of-manchester"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-278.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">To the Warriors of Manchester.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="war-in-the-dark"><span class="large">CHAPTER XVIII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">WAR IN THE DARK</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Tageblatt</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Feldgrauer</em><span> was ingloriously drowned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">communiques</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Illustrated London News</em><span> and -</span><em class="italics">Sphere</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="line"><span>We've watched you playing cricket</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>And every kind of game.</span></div> -</div> -<div class="line"><span>At football, golf and polo,</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>You men have made your name.</span></div> -</div> -<div class="line"><span>But now your country calls you</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>To play your part in war,</span></div> -</div> -<div class="line"><span>And no matter what befalls you,</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>We shall love you all the more.</span></div> -</div> -<div class="line"><span>So, come and join the forces</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>As your fathers did before.</span></div> -<div class="line"> </div> -</div> -<div class="line"><span>CHORUS</span></div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line"><span>Oh! We don't want to lose you,</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>But we think you ought to go.</span></div> -</div> -<div class="line"><span>For your King and your Country</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>Both need you so!</span></div> -</div> -<div class="line"><span>We shall want you, and miss you,</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>But with all our might and main</span></div> -</div> -<div class="line"><span>We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you,</span></div> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>When you come back again!</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 95%" id="figure-287"> -<span id="greeting-the-kaiser-in-helmet-the-day-he-declared-germany-in-a-state-of-war-july-31st-1914"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-286.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Greeting the Kaiser (in helmet) the day he declared Germany "in a state of war," July 31st, 1914.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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--</span><em class="italics">The War on German Trade</em><span>, with the sub-titles of -"Ammunition for Civilians" and "Hints for a Plan of -Campaign." My old friend, Sidney Whitman, the -distinguished author of </span><em class="italics">Imperial Germany</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">confrères</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">German Spies in England</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">first</em><span>, and a stock-broker earning commissions in -London, a barber taking English tips, or a waiter spilling -English soup, afterward. It is always </span><em class="italics">Deutschland, -Deutschland über Alles</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<pre class="literal-block"> -<span>+-------------------------------------------------+ -| | -| 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. | -| | -+-------------------------------------------------+</span> -</pre> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Morning Post</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Good Hope</em><span>, and her companion, the -</span><em class="italics">Monmouth</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Scharnhorst</em><span>, together with the sister cruiser </span><em class="italics">Gneisenau</em><span> -and the smaller </span><em class="italics">Leipzig</em><span>, was sent to the bottom off the -Falkland Islands, and the remaining units in the -German squadron, the </span><em class="italics">Dresden</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Nürnberg</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Emden</em><span> by the Australian cruiser </span><em class="italics">Sydney</em><span> -off the Cocos Islands and the capture of her intrepid -commander, Captain von Müller, and many of his -crew. The </span><em class="italics">Emden</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Goeben</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Breslau</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Goeben</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span>, 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:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But it was Asquith's peroration, at which my -impressionistic sketch in </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> 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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-internal-foe"><span class="large">CHAPTER XIX</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE INTERNAL FOE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>You wondered, if you were a blithering, neurotic -American, for example, what </span><em class="italics">would</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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 </span><em class="italics">was</em><span> able to risk a sortie in the North Sea. What -mattered most was that the islanders still alive were -</span><em class="italics">unmoved and immovable</em><span>. 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">invited</em><span> war with Germany, the flaming warnings of -which the islands had for years.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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," </span><em class="italics">i.e.</em><span>, -works engaged exclusively in the production of -munitions for the Government and whose financial -operations could, therefore, be exactly checked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">lèse-majesté</em><span> by paying no attention to the King's -decree of self-denial.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Labor -Leader</em><span> and George Lansbury's Socialist </span><em class="italics">Herald</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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"?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 100%" id="figure-288"> -<span id="soldiers-in-the-making-11th-battalion-cook-house"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-316.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Soldiers in the making--11th Battalion cook-house.</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">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</em><span>.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shall we allow the old-world tyranny to return?"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Glasier, unwittingly, tapped the very root of the -problem, as far as his own particular cohorts, -"downtrodden labor," are concerned. </span><em class="italics">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.</em><span>" 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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Christian Commonwealth</em><span> 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!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Rule, Britannia</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Service</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Sacrifice</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">they knew no better</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">every other single one of Britain's -Allies</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-empire-of-hate"><span class="large">CHAPTER XX</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE EMPIRE OF HATE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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--</span><em class="italics">three full months -before</em><span> "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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Kinderstube</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">ultima ratio</em><span>, -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Lokal-Anzeiger</em><span>, the radical </span><em class="italics">Berliner Tageblatt</em><span>, the -venerable </span><em class="italics">Vossische Zeitung</em><span>, Count Reventlow's -organ of Frightfulness, the </span><em class="italics">Deutsche Tageszeitung</em><span>, the -Pan-German </span><em class="italics">Tägliche Rundschau</em><span>, the Thunderer of -Prussian conservatism, the </span><em class="italics">Kreuz-Zeitung</em><span>, and -Maximilian Harden's vitriolic </span><em class="italics">Zukunft</em><span>. The voice of -paralyzed Hamburg has come to me morning and night -through the malevolent </span><em class="italics">Hamburger Nachrichten</em><span> and -</span><em class="italics">Fremdenblatt</em><span>. </span><em class="italics">Vorwärts</em><span> has kept me informed of -German Socialism's invertebrate vagaries. The -cultured </span><em class="italics">Cologne Gazette</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">Frankfurter Zeitung</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Munich Neueste Nachrichten</em><span>. The </span><em class="italics">Dresdner Anzeiger</em><span> -has mirrored Saxony day by day. And, as the -</span><em class="italics">Stimmung</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Simplicissimus</em><span>, artistic </span><em class="italics">Jugend, -Fliegende Blätter</em><span> and </span><em class="italics">Lustige Blätter</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Hymn of Hate Against England</em><span>, whose soul is best -breathed by its closing stanza:</span></p> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="line"><span>"Take you the folk of the Earth in pay,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>With bars of gold your ramparts lay,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>Bedeck the ocean with bow on bow,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>Ye reckon well, but not well enough now.</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>French and Russian, they matter not,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>A blow for a blow, a shot for a shot,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>We fight the battle with bronze and steel,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>And the time that is coming Peace will seal.</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>You will we hate with a lasting hate,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>We will never forego our hate,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>Hate by water and hate by land,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>Hate of the head and hate of the hand,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>Hate of seventy millions, choking down.</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>We love as one, we hate as one,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>We have one foe, and one alone--</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>ENGLAND!"</span></div> -<div class="line"> </div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> from the columns of the </span><em class="italics">New York -Times</em><span>, 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 </span><em class="italics">Hymn of Hate</em><span> 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, </span><em class="italics">England!</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Hymn of Hate</em><span>. 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>While the </span><em class="italics">Hymn of Hate</em><span> was at the zenith of its -glory, some genius whose name, unfortunately, will be -lost to posterity, invented </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England!</em><span> (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 </span><em class="italics">Guten Morgen</em><span>. They shook hands solemnly -and exclaimed </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span>! When they -parted at night, it was not </span><em class="italics">Guten Abend</em><span>, but </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe -England</em><span>! 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 </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span>. Now -postcards blossomed forth with the new national motto. -Scarf-pins made their appearance in the windows of -cheap-jewelry stores, inscribed </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span>! -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 </span><em class="italics">Liebesgabe</em><span> to a dear one in the trenches went -forth with a pair of black-white-red braces imprinted -</span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span>! On a medal which doubtless -decorated thousands of German breasts--a sample -reached England--was engraved:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst"><span>"Give us this day our daily bread; England<br />would take it from us. God punish her!"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span> 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Englishmen, and especially English soldiers, perhaps -measured the </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe England</em><span> 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: </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe Harrow</em><span>! -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:</span></p> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="inner line-block"> -<div class="line"><span>April Fool!</span></div> -</div> -<div class="line"><em class="italics">Gott strafe England!</em></div> -<div class="line"> </div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 82%" id="figure-289"> -<span id="a-prussian-household-at-their-morning-hate-from-london-punch"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-334.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">"A PRUSSIAN HOUSEHOLD AT THEIR MORNING HATE--From </span><em class="italics">London Punch</em><span class="italics">"</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Mr. Punch and his lesser </span><em class="italics">confrères</em><span> in British -humor have almost lived through the war on </span><em class="italics">Gott strafe -England</em><span>! The sentiment has not struck terror into -John Bull's heart, but it has very materially added to -his war-time gaiety.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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! </span><em class="italics">Sic -transit gloria mundi!</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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. -</span><em class="italics">Vorwärts</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Kaiser Maneuvers</em><span>--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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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. "</span><em class="italics">Das Kind darf keinen Willen hoben!</em><span>" 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 </span><em class="italics">Kinderstube</em><span> with its unfailing rod and -enters </span><em class="italics">Gymnasium</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Gymnasia</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">must</em><span> 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!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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--</span><em class="italics">Rechthaberei</em><span>. 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 -</span><em class="italics">Rechthaberei</em><span>"--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 </span><em class="italics">Rechthaberei</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">Rechthaberei</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">nothing</em><span> printed abroad about -the war is or can be true! So the German who finds -</span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> or the </span><em class="italics">New York Times</em><span> on its -accustomed file at his favorite café, just as he used to do in -peace days, </span><em class="italics">knows in advance</em><span> that he is to read "lies," -and he digests them, leaving his patriotism unpolluted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-new-england"><span class="large">CHAPTER XXI</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE NEW ENGLAND</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Sieges-Allee</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span>: "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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>While this healthy conviction was soaking into -Britain's sluggish consciousness, the crowning infamy of -the </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span>!" -and reproducing the verdict of the Queenstown coroner's jury</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It is your duty," the poster added, "to take up the -Sword of Justice to avenge this devil's work. ENLIST TO-DAY!"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">Lusitania's</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Thus was Britain ringing with righteous wrath in -the middle of May, 1915, when what I venture to -dignify as </span><em class="italics">the turning-point of the war</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>On May 14 Lieutenant-Colonel Repington, in a -dispatch to </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> 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:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The attacks were well planned and valiantly -conducted. The infantry did splendidly, but the -conditions were too hard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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. </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>On May 21 Lord Northcliffe's </span><em class="italics">Daily Mail</em><span>--his -critics are fond of calling </span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span> the "penny -edition" of </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span>--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, </span><em class="italics">The -Daily Mail</em><span> 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. </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> -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 </span><em class="italics">fighting</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily -Mail's</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">The Times, The -Daily Mail</em><span> 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. </span><em class="italics">Punch</em><span> -epitomized national sentiment in a cartoon showing -John Bull patting Kitchener on the shoulder, trampling -a </span><em class="italics">Daily Mail</em><span> under foot, and saying:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"If you need assurance, Sir, you may like to know -that you have the loyal support of all decent people in -this country."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail's</em><span> -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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> 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 </span><em class="italics">bring the -war home</em><span> to Englishmen. The </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> partially -served the purpose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But the gassed Tommies back from the trenches and -the widows and the orphans manufactured by the -</span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 -</span><em class="italics">garage</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Lusitania</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">The Daily Mail</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Debrett</em><span>. -Ten per cent. of the British officers who have died in -the war were in the pages of </span><em class="italics">Debrett's Peerage, -Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="quo-vadis"><span class="large">CHAPTER XXII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">QUO VADIS?</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>October, 1915. The eighty-third day of the -second year of war. A woman, writing in -</span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">Recessional</em><span> 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">not less than -one-half of their entire income</em><span>, 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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 63%" id="figure-290"> -<span id="lord-northcliffe"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-380.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Lord Northcliffe</span></div> -</div> -<p class="pnext"><span>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 </span><em class="italics">The -Economist</em><span>. "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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="smaller">[1] There are ugly rumors that Produce Exchange patriots who -burnt </span><em class="italics smaller">The Daily Mail</em><span class="smaller"> 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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="medium">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."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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. </span><em class="italics">There has been too much congratulation and -self-congratulation on the sang-froid with which John -Bull can take punishment</em><span>. 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 </span><em class="italics">incapable</em><span> of defeating Germany. It is that -she seems </span><em class="italics">unwilling</em><span> 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 -</span><em class="italics">The Times</em><span>:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"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."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>I, too, shall be a pessimist about England's chances -to win the war only so long as she neglects to </span><em class="italics">go to war</em><span>. -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 </span><em class="italics">all</em><span>. 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, </span><em class="italics">once -mobilized</em><span>, 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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span>FINIS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 6em"> -</div> -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="backmatter"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst" id="pg-end-line"><span>*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK </span><span>THE ASSAULT</span><span> ***</span></p> -<div class="cleardoublepage"> -</div> -<div class="language-en level-2 pgfooter section" id="a-word-from-project-gutenberg" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<span id="pg-footer"></span><h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><span>A Word from Project Gutenberg</span></h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span>We will update this book if we find any errors.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This book can be found under: </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41252"><span>http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41252</span></a></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>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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