XXI THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

<IMG SRC="thumbnails/Page19tn.jpg" WIDTH="96" HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" > <P ALIGN=CENTER><IMG SRC="thumbnails/Page20tn.jpg" WIDTH="112" HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" > <P ALIGN=CENTER>Fig. 19. Walter H. Page, at the time of America's entry into the war, April, 1917 <P ALIGN=CENTER>Fig. 20. Resolution passed by the two Houses of Parliament, April 18, 1917, on America's entry into the war </TABLE></CENTER>

But Page had little time for such vain communings. "All that water," as he now wrote, "has flowed over the dam." Occasionally his mind would revert to the dreadful period of "neutrality," but in the main his activities, mental and physical, were devoted to the future. A letter addressed to his son Arthur shows how quickly and how sympathetically he was adjusting himself to the new prospect. His mind was now occupied with ships, food, armies, warfare on submarines, and the approaching resettlement of the world. How completely he foresaw the part that the United States must play in the actual waging of hostilities, and to what an extent he himself was responsible for the policies that ultimately prevailed, appears in this letter:

.

<P ALIGN=CENTER>To Arthur W. Page

25 March, 1917, London.

DEAR ARTHUR:

It's very hard, not to say impossible, to write in these swiftly moving days. Anything written to-day is out of date to-morrow---even if it be not wrong to start with. The impression becomes stronger here every day that we shall go into the war "with both feet"---that the people have pushed the President over in spite of his vision of the Great Peacemaker, and that, being pushed over, his idea now will be to show how he led them into a glorious war in defense of democracy. That's my reading of the situation, and I hope I am not wrong. At any rate, ever since the call of Congress for April 2nd, I have been telegraphing tons of information and plans that can be of use only if we go to war. Habitually they never acknowledge the receipt of anything at Washington. I don't know, therefore, whether they like these pieces of information or not. I have my staff of twenty-five good men getting all sorts of warlike information; and I have just organized twenty-five or thirty more---the best business Americans in London---who are also at work. I am trying to get the Government at Washington to send over a committee of conference---a General, an Admiral, a Reserve Board man, etc., etc. If they do half the things that I recommend we'll be in at the final lickin' big, and will save our souls yet.

There's lots of human nature in this world. A note is now sometimes heard here in undertone (Northcliffe strikes it)---that they don't want the Americans in the war. This means that if we come in just as the Allies finish the job we'll get credit, in part, for the victory, which we did little to win! But that's a minor note. The great mass of people do want us in, quick, hard, and strong---our money and our guns and our ships.

A gift of a billion dollars(<A NAME="n165"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#165">165</A>) to France will fix Franco-American history all right for several centuries. Push it through. Such a gift could come to this Kingdom also but for the British stupidity about the Irish for three hundred years. A big loan to Great Britain at a low rate of interest will do the work here.

My mind keeps constantly on the effect of the war and especially of our action on our own country. Of course that is the most important end of the thing for us. I hope that

1. It will break up and tear away our isolation;

2. It will unhorse our cranks and soft-brains.

3. It will make us less promiscuously hospitable to every kind of immigrant;

4. It will reestablish in our minds and conscience and policy our true historic genesis, background, kindred, and destiny---i. e., kill the Irish and the German influence.

5. It will revive our real manhood---put the mollycoddles in disgrace, as idiots and dandies are;

6. It will make our politics frank and manly by restoring our true nationality;

7. It will make us again a great sea-faring people. It is this that has given Great Britain its long lead in the world;

8. Break up our feminized education---make a boy a vigorous animal and make our education rest on a wholesome physical basis;

9. Bring men of a higher type into our political life.

We need waking up and shaking up and invigorating as much as the Germans need taking down.

There is no danger of "militarism" in any harmful sense among any English race or in any democracy.

By George! all these things open an interesting outlook and series of tasks---don't they?

My staff and I are asking everybody what the Americans can best do to help the cause along. The views are not startling, but they are interesting.

Jellicoe: More ships, merchant ships, any kind of ships, and take over the patrol of the American side of the Atlantic and release the British cruisers there.

Balfour: American credits in the United States, big enough to keep up the rate of exchange.

Bonar Law: Same thing.

The military men: An expeditionary force, no matter how small, for the effect of the American Flag in Europe., If one regiment marched through London and Paris and took the Flag to the front, that would be worth the winning of a battle.

Think of the vast increase of territory and power Great Britain will have---her colonies drawn closer than ever, the German colonies, or most of them, taken over by her, Bagdad hers---what a way Germany chose to lessen the British Empire! And these gains of territory will be made, as most of her gains have been, not by any prearranged, set plan, but as by-products of action for some other purpose. The only people who have made a deliberate plan to conquer the earth---now living---are the Germans. And from first to last the additions to the British Empire have been made because she has been a first-class maritime power.

And that's the way she has made her trade and her money, too.

On top of this the President speculates about the danger of the white man losing his supremacy because a few million men get killed! The truth is every country that is playing a big part in the war was overpopulated. There will be a considerable productive loss because the killed men were, as a rule, the best men; but the white man's control of the world hasn't depended on any few million of males. This speculation is far up in the clouds. If Russia and Germany really be liberated from social and political and industrial autocracy, this liberation will bring into play far more power than all the men killed in the war could have had under the pre-war régime. I observe this with every year of my observation---there's no substitute for common-sense.

The big results of the war will, after all, be the freedom and the stimulation of men in these weary Old-World lands---in Russia, Germany itself, and in England. In five or ten years (or sooner, alas!) the dead will be forgotten.

If you wish to make a picture of the world as it will be when the war ends, you must conjure up such scenes as these---human bones along the Russian highways where the great retreat took place and all that such a sight denotes; Poland literally starved; Serbia, blasted and burned and starved; Armenia butchered; the horrible tragedy of Gallipoli, where the best soldiers in the world were sacrificed to politicians' policies; Austria and Germany starved and whipped but liberalized---perhaps no king in either country; Belgium---belgiumized; northern France the same and worse; more productive Frenchmen killed in proportion to the population perhaps than any other country will have lost; Great Britain---most of her best men gone or maimed; colossal debts; several Teutonic countries bankrupt; every atrocity conceivable committed somewhere---a hell-swept great continent having endured more suffering in three years than in the preceding three hundred. Then, ten years later, most of this suffering a mere memory; governments reorganized and liberalized; men made more efficient by this strenuous three years' work; the fields got back their bloom, and life going on much as it did before---with this chief difference---some kings have gone and many privileges have been abolished. The lessons are two---(1) that no government can successfully set out and conquer the world; and (2) that the hold that privilege holders acquire costs more to dislodge than any one could ever have guessed. That's the sum of it. Kings and privilege mongers, of course, have held the parts of the world separate from one another. They fatten on provincialism, which is mistaken for patriotism.. As they lose their grip, human sympathy has its natural play between nations, and civilization has a chance. With any Emperor of Germany left the war will have been half in vain.

If we (the U. S. A.) cultivate the manly qualities and throw off our cranks and read our own history and be true to our traditions and blood and get some political vigour; then if we emancipate ourselves from the isolation theory and from the landlubber theory---get into the world and build ships, ships, ships, ships, and run them to the ends of the seas, we can dominate the world in trade and in political thought.

You know I have moments when it occurs to me that perhaps I'd better give whatever working years I may have to telling this story---the story of the larger meaning of the war. There's no bigger theme---never was one so big.

Affectionately,

W. H. P.

.

On April 1st, the day before President Wilson made his great address before Congress requesting that body to declare the existence of a state of war with Germany, Page committed to paper a few paragraphs which summed up his final judgment of President Wilson's foreign policy for the preceding two and a half years.

.

Embassy of the United States of America,
April 1, 1917.

In these last days, before the United States is forced into war---by the people's insistence---the preceding course of events becomes even clearer than it was before; and it has been as clear all the time as the nose on a man's face.

The President began by refusing to understand the meaning of the war. To him it seemed a quarrel to settle economic rivalries between Germany and England. He said to me last September(<A NAME="n166"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#166">166</A>) that there were many causes why Germany went to war. He showed a great degree of toleration for Germany; and he was, during the whole morning that I talked with him, complaining of England. The controversies we had with England were, of course, mere by-products of the conflict. But to him they seemed as important as the controversy we had with Germany. In the beginning he had made---as far as it was possible---neutrality a positive quality of mind. He would not move from that position.

That was his first error of judgment. And by insisting on this he soothed the people---sat them down in comfortable chairs and said, "Now stay there." He really suppressed speech and thought.

The second error he made was in thinking that he could play a great part as peacemaker---come and give a blessing to these erring children. This was strong in his hopes and ambitions. There was a condescension in this attitude that was offensive.

He shut himself up with these two ideas and engaged in what he called "thought." The air currents of the world never ventilated his mind.

This inactive position he has kept as long as public sentiment permitted. He seems no longer to regard himself nor to speak as a leader---only as the mouthpiece of public opinion after opinion has run over him.

He has not breathed a spirit into the people: he has encouraged them to supineness. He is not a leader, but rather a stubborn phrasemaker.

And now events and the aroused people seem to have brought the President to the necessary point of action; and even now he may act timidly.

.

"One thing pleases me," Page wrote to his son Arthur, I never lost faith in the American people. It is now clear that I was right in feeling that they would have gladly come in any time after the Lusitania crime, Middle West in the front, and that the German hasn't made any real impression on the American nation. He was made a bug-a-boo and worked for all he was worth by Bernstorff; and that's the whole story. We are as Anglo-Saxon as we ever were. If Hughes had had sense and courage enough to say: 'I'm for war, war to save our honour and to save democracy,' he would now be President. If Wilson had said that, Hughes would have carried no important states in the Union. The suppressed people would have risen to either of them. That's God's truth as I believe it. The real United States is made up of you and Frank and the Page boys at Aberdeen and of the 10,000,000 other young fellows who are ready to do the job and who instinctively see the whole truth of the situation. But of course what the people would not have done under certain conditions---that water also has flowed over the dam; and I mention it only because I have resolutely kept my faith in the people and there has been nothing in recent events that has shaken it."

Two letters which Page wrote on this same April 1st are interesting in that they outline almost completely the war policy that was finally carried out:

.

<P ALIGN=CENTER>To Frank N. Doubleday

Embassy of the United States of America,
April 1, 1917.

DEAR EFFENDI:

Here's the programme:

(1) Our navy in immediate action in whatever way a conference with the British shows we can best help.

(2) A small expeditionary force to France immediately---as large as we can quickly make ready, if only 10,000 men---as proof that we are ready to do some fighting.

(3) A large expeditionary force as soon as the men can be organized and equipped. They can be trained into an effective army in France in about one fourth of the time that they could be trained anywhere else.

(4) A large loan to the Allies at a low rate of interest.

(5) Ships, ships, ships---troop ships, food ships, munition ships, auxiliary ships to the navy, wooden ships, steel ships, little ships, big ships, ships, ships, ships without number or end.

(6) A clear-cut expression of the moral issue involved in the war. Every social and political ideal that we stand for is at stake. If we value democracy in the world, this is the chance to further it or---to bring it into utter disrepute. After Russia must come Germany and Austria; and then the King-business will pretty nearly be put out of commission.

(7) We must go to war in dead earnest. We must sign the Allies' agreement not to make a separate peace, and we must stay in to the end. Then the end will be very greatly hastened.

It's been four years ago to-day since I was first asked to come here. God knows I've done my poor best to save our country and to help. It'll be four years in the middle of May since I sailed. I shall still do my best. I'll not be able to start back by May 15th, but I have a feeling, if we do our whole duty in the United States, that the end may not be very many months off. And how long off it may be may depend to a considerable degree on our action.

We are faring very well on army rations. None of us will live to see another time when so many big things are at stake nor another time when our country can play so large or important a part in saying the world. Hold up your end. I'm doing my best here.

I think of you engaged in the peaceful work of instructing the people, and I think of the garden and crocuses and the smell of early spring in the air and the earth and push on; I'll be with you before we grow much older or get much grayer; and a great and prosperous and peaceful time will lie before us. Pity me and hold up your end for real American participation. Get together? Yes; but the way to get together is to get in!

Affectionately,

W. H. P.

 

.
 <P ALIGN=CENTER>To David F. Houston(<A
 NAME="n167"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#167">167</A>)
 

Embassy of the United States of America, 

 April 1, 1917.
 

DEAR HOUSTON:
 

The Administration can save itself from becoming a black blot
 on American history only by vigorous action---acts such as these:
 

Putting our navy to work---vigorous work---wherever and however
 is wisest. I have received the Government's promise to send an
 Admiral here at once for a conference. We must work out with
 the British Navy a programme whereby we can best help; and we
 must carry it without hesitancy or delay.
 

Sending over an expeditionary military force immediately---a
 small one, but as large as we can, as an earnest of a larger
 one to come. This immediate small one will have a good moral
 effect; and we need all the moral reinstatement that we can get
 in the estimation of the world; our moral stock is lower than,
 I fear, any of you at home can possibly realize. As for a larger
 expeditionary force later---even that ought to be sent quite
 early. It can and must spend some time in training in France,
 whatever its training beforehand may have been. All the military
 men agree that soldiers in France back of the line can be trained
 in at least half the time that they can be trained anywhere else.
 The officers at once take their turn in the trenches, and the
 progress that they and their men make in close proximity to the
 fighting is one of the remarkable discoveries of the war. The
 British Army was so trained and all the colonial forces. Two
 or three or four hundred thousand Americans could be sent over
 as soon almost as they are organized and equipped---provided
 transports and a continuous supply of food and munition ships
 can be got. They can be trained into fighting men---into an effective
 army---in about one third of the time that would be required
 at home.
 

I suppose, of course, we shall make at once a large loan to
 the Allies at a low rate of interest. That is most important,
 but that alone will not save us. We must also fight.
 

All the ships we can get---build, requisition, or confiscate---are
 needed immediately
 

Navy, army, money, ships---these are the first things, but
 by no means all. We must make some expression of a conviction
 that there is a moral question of right and wrong involved in
 this war---a question of humanity, a question of democracy. So
 far we have (officially) spoken only of the wrongs done to our
 ships and citizens. Deep wrongs have been done to all our moral
 ideas, to our ideals. We have sunk very low in European opinion
 because we do not seem to know even yet that a German victory
 would be less desirable than (say) a Zulu victory of the world.
 

We must go in with the Allies, not begin a mere single fight
 against submarines. We must sign the pact of London---not make
 a separate peace.
 

We mustn't longer spin dreams about peace, nor leagues to
 enforce peace, nor the Freedom of the Seas. These things are
 mere intellectual diversions of minds out of contact with realities.
 Every political and social ideal we have is at stake. If we make
 them secure, we'll save Europe from destruction and save ourselves,
 too.
 

I pray for vigour and decision and clear-cut resolute action.
 

(1) The Navy-full strength, no "grapejuice" action.
 

(2) An immediate expeditionary force.
 

(3) A larger expeditionary force very soon.
 

(4) A large loan at a low interest.
 

(5) Ships, ships, ships.
 

(6) A clear-cut expression of the moral issue. Thus (and only
 thus) can we swing into a new era, with a world born again.

Yours in strictest confidence,

W. H. P.

.

A memorandum, written on April 3rd, the day after President Wilson advised Congress to declare a state of war with Germany:

.

<P ALIGN=CENTER>The Day

When I went to see Mr. Balfour to-day he shook my hand warmly and said: "It's a great day for the world." And so has everybody said, in one way or another, that I have met to-day.

The President's speech did not appear in the morning papers---only a very brief summary in one or two of them; but the meaning of it was clear. The fact that the House of Representatives organized itself in one day and that the President addressed Congress on the evening of that day told the story. The noon papers had the President's speech in full; and everybody applauds.

My "Cabinet" meeting this morning was unusually interesting; and the whole group has never before been so delighted. I spoke of the suggestive, constructive work we have already done in making reports on various war preparations and activities of this kingdom. "Now we have greater need than ever, every man to do constructive work---to think of plans to serve. We are in this excellent strategical position in the capital of the greatest belligerent---a position which I thank my stars, the President, and all the powers that be for giving us. We can each strive to justify our existence."

Few visitors called; but enthusiastic letters have begun to come in.

Nearly the whole afternoon was spent with Mr. Balfour and Lord Robert Cecil. Mr. Balfour had a long list of subjects. Could we help in (1)---(2)---(3)?--- Every once m a while he stopped his enumeration of subjects long enough to tell me how the action of the United States had moved him.

To Lord Robert I said: "I pray you, give the Black List a decent burial: It's dead now, but through no act of yours. It insulted every American because you did not see that it was insulting: that's the discouraging fact to me." He thanked me earnestly. He'll think about that.

.

<P ALIGN=CENTER>II

These jottings give only a faint impression of the change which the American action wrought in Page. The strain which he had undergone for twenty-nine months had been intense; it had had the most unfortunate effect upon his health; and the sudden lifting might have produced that reaction for the worse which is not unusual after critical experiences of this kind. But the gratification which Page felt in the fact that the American spirit had justified his confidence gave him almost a certain exuberance of contentment. Londoners who saw him at that time describe him as acting like a man from whose shoulders a tremendous weight had suddenly been removed. For more than two years Page had been compelled, officially at least, to assume a "neutrality" with which he had never had the slightest sympathy, but the necessity for this mask now no longer existed. A well-known Englishman happened to meet Page leaving his house in Grosvenor Square the day after the Declaration of War. He stopped and shook the Ambassador's hand.

"Thank God," the Englishman said, "that there is one hypocrite less in London to-day."

"What do you mean?" asked Page.

"I mean you. Pretending all this time that you were neutral! That isn't necessary any longer."

"You are right!" the Ambassador answered as he walked on with a laugh and a wave of the hand.

A few days after the Washington Declaration, the American Luncheon Club held a feast in honour of the event. This organization had a membership of representative American business men in London, but its behaviour during the war had not been based upon Mr. Wilson's idea of neutrality. Indeed its tables had so constantly rung with denunciations of the Lusitania notes that all members of the American Embassy, from Page down, had found it necessary to refrain from attending its proceedings. When Page arose to address his compatriots on this occasion, therefore, he began with the significant words, "I am glad to be back with you again," and the mingled laughter and cheers with which this remark was received indicated that his hearers had caught the point.

The change took place not only in Page, but in London and the whole of Great Britain. An England that had been saying harsh things of the United States for nearly two years now suddenly changed its attitude. Both houses of Parliament held commemorative sessions in honour of America's participation; in the Commons Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Asquith, and other leaders welcomed their new allies, and in the Upper Chamber Lord Curzon, Lord Bryce, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others similarly voiced their admiration. The Stars and Stripes almost instantaneously broke out on private dwellings, shops, hotels, and theatres; street hucksters did a thriving business selling rosettes of the American colours, which even the most stodgy Englishmen did not disdain to wear in their buttonholes; wherever there was a band or an orchestra, the Star Spangled Banner acquired a sudden popularity; and the day even came when the American and the British flags flew side by side over the Houses of Parliament---the first occasion in history that any other than the British standard had received this honour. The editorial outgivings of the British press on America's entrance form a literature all their own. The theatres and the music halls, which had found in "notes" and "nootrality" an endless theme of entertainment for their patrons, now sounded Americanism as their most popular refrain. Churches and cathedrals gave special services in honour of American intervention, and the King and the President began to figure side by the side in the prayer book. The estimation in which President Wilson was held changed overnight. All the phrases that had so grieved Englishmen were instantaneously forgotten. The President's address before Congress was praised as one of the most eloquent and statesmanlike utterances in history. Special editions of this heartening document had a rapid sale; it was read in school houses, churches, and at public gatherings, and it became a most influential force in uplifting the hopes of the Allies and inspiring them to renewed activities. Americans everywhere, in the streets, at dinner tables, and in general social intercourse, could feel the new atmosphere of respect and admiration which had suddenly become their country's portion. The first American troops that passed through London---a company of engineers, an especially fine body of men---aroused a popular enthusiasm which was almost unprecedented in a capital not celebrated for its emotional displays. Page himself records one particularly touching indication of the feeling for Americans which was now universal. "The increasing number of Americans who come through England," he wrote, "most of them on their way to France, but some of them also to serve in England, give much pleasure to the British public---nurses, doctors, railway engineers, sawmill units, etc. The sight of every American uniform pleases London. The other morning a group of American nurses gathered with the usual crowd in front of Buckingham Palace while the Guards band played inside the gates. Man after man as they passed them and saw their uniforms lifted their hats."

     <P ALIGN=CENTER><IMG SRC="thumbnails/Page22tn.jpg" WIDTH="108"
     HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ></TD> 
 </TR>

     <P ALIGN=CENTER>Fig.
     21. The
     Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George. Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1908
     1915, Minister of Munitions, 1915-1916, Prime Minister of Great
     Britain since 1916.</TD> 

     <P ALIGN=CENTER>Fig.
     22. The
     Rt. Hon. Arthur James Balfour (now the Earl of Balfour) Secretary
     of State for Foreign Affairs, 1916-1919</TD> 
 </TR>