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[[Main Page | WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XXV'''
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<center>[[Image: Walter_H._Page_Signature.gif]]</center> <br><br>


<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2" FACE="Times">CHAPTER XXV</FONT></center>


<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">GETTING THE AMERICAN TROOPS TO FRANCE</FONT></center>

<br><br>A GROUP of letters, written at this time, touch upon a variety
of topics which were then engaging the interest of all countries:

<br><br>.


<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Arthur W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, January 19, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR ARTHUR:
  <br><br>While your letter is still fresh in my mind I dictate the
  following in answer to your question about Palestine.
  <br><br>It has not been settled---and cannot be, I fancy, until the
  Peace Conference---precisely what the British will do with Palestine,
  but I have what I think is a correct idea of their general attitude
  on the subject. First, of course, they do not propose to allow
  it to go back into Turkish hands; and the same can be said also
  of Armenia and possibly of Mesopotamia. Their idea of the future
  of Palestine is that whoever shall manage the country, or however
  it shall be managed, the Jews shall have the same chance as anybody
  else. Of course that's quite an advance for the Jews there, but
  their idea is not that the Jews should have command of other
  populations there or control over them---not in the least. My
  guess at the English wish, which I have every reason to believe
  is the right guess, is that they would wish to have Palestine
  internationalized, whatever that means. That is to say, that
  it should have control of its own local affairs and be a free
  country but that some great Power, or number of Powers, should
  see to it that none of the races that live there should be allowed
  to impose upon the other races. I don't know just how such a
  guarantee can be given by the great Powers or such a responsibility
  assumed except by an agreement among two or three of them, or
  barely possibly by the English keeping control themselves; but
  the control by the English after the war of the former German
  colonies will put such a large task on them that they will not
  be particularly eager to extend the area of their responsibility
  elsewhere. Of course a difficult problem will come up also about
  Constantinople and the Dardanelles. The Dardanelles must be internationalized.
  <br><br>I have never been able to consider the Zionist movement seriously.
  It is a mere religious sentiment which will express itself in
  action by very few people. I have asked a number of Jews at various
  times who are in favour of the Zionist movement if they themselves
  are going there. They always say no. The movement, therefore,
  has fixed itself in my mind as a Jewish movement in which no
  Jew that you can lay your hands on will ever take part but who
  wants other Jews to take part in it. Of course there might be
  a flocking to Palestine of Jews from Russia and the adjoining
  countries where they are not happy, but I think the thing is
  chiefly a sentiment and nothing else. Morgenthau<ref>Mr. Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey, 1913-16, an American of Jewish origin who opposed the Zionist movement as un-American and deceptive.</ref>is dead right. I agree with
  him in toto. I do not think anybody in the United States need
  be the least concerned about the Zionist movement because there
  isn't a single Jew in our country such a fool as to go to Palestine
  when he can stay in the United States. The whole thing is a sentimental,
  religious, more or less unnatural and fantastic idea and I don't
  think will ever trouble so practical a people as we and our Jews
  are.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>The following memorandum is dated February 10, 1918:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <br><br>General Bliss<ref>American member of the Supreme War Council. Afterward member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace.</ref>
  has made a profound and the best possible impression here by
  his wisdom and his tact. The British have a deep respect for
  him and for his opinions, and in inspiring and keeping high confidence
  in us he is worth an army in himself. I have seen much of him
  and found out a good deal about his methods. He is simplicity
  and directness itself. Although he is as active and energetic
  as a boy, he spends some time by himself to think things out
  and even to say them to himself to see how his conclusions strike
  the ear as well as the mind. He has been staying here at the
  house of one of our resident officers. At times he goes to his
  room and sits long by the fire and argues his point---out loud---oblivious
  to' everything else. More than once when he was so engaged one
  of his officers has knocked at the door and gone in and laid
  telegrams on the table beside him and gone out without his having
  known of the officer's entrance. Then he comes out and tries
  his conclusion on someone who enjoys his confidence. And then
  he stands by it and when the time comes delivers it slowly and
  with precision; and there he is; and those who hear him see that
  he has thought the matter out on all sides and finally.
  <br><br>Our various establishments in London have now become big---the
  Embassy proper, the Naval and Army Headquarters, the Red Cross,
  the War Trade Board's representatives, and now (forthwith) the
  Shipping Board, besides Mr. Crosby of the Treasury. The volume
  of work is enormous and it goes smoothly, except for the somewhat
  halting Army Headquarters, the high personnel of which is now
  undergoing a change; and that will now be all right. I regularly
  make the rounds of all the Government Departments with which
  we deal to learn if they find our men and methods effective,
  and the rounds of all our centres of activity to find whether
  there be any friction with the British. The whole machine moves
  very well. For neither side hesitates to come to me whenever
  they strike even small snags. All our people are at work on serious
  tasks and (so far as I know) there are now none of those despicable
  creatures here who used during our neutrality days to come from
  the United States on peace errands and what---not to spy on the
  Embassy and me (their inquiries and their correspondence were
  catalogued by the police). I have been amazed at the activity
  of some of them whose doings I have since been informed of.
  <br><br>We now pay this tribute to the submarines---that we have entered
  the period of compulsory rations. There is enough to eat in spite
  of the food that has gone to feed the fishes. But no machinery
  of distribution to a whole population can be uniformly effective.
  The British worker with his hands is a greedy feeder and a sturdy
  growler and there will be trouble. But I know no reason to apprehend
  serious trouble.
  <br><br>The utter break-up of Russia and the German present occupation
  of so much of the Empire as she wants have had a contrary effect
  on two sections of opinion here, as I interpret the British mind.
  On the undoubtedly enormously dominant section of opinion these
  events have only stiffened resolution. They say that Germany
  now must be whipped to a finish. Else she will have doubled her
  empire and will hold the peoples of her new territory as vassals
  without regard to their wishes and the war lord caste will be
  more firmly seated than ever before. If her armies be literally
  whipped she'll have to submit to the Allies' terms, which will
  dislodge her from overlordship over these new unwilling subjects---and
  she can be dislodged in no other way. This probably means a long
  war, now that after a time she can get raw materials for war
  later and food from Rumania and the Ukraine, etc. This will mean
  a fight in France and Belgium till a decisive victory is won
  and the present exultant German will is broken.
  <br><br>The minority section of public opinion---as I judge a small
  minority---has the feeling that such an out-and-out military
  victory cannot be won or is not worth the price; and that the
  enemies of Germany, allowing her to keep her Eastern accretions,
  must make the best terms they can in the East; that there's no
  use in running the risk of Italy's defeat and defection before
  some sort of bargain could be made about Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine,
  and Serbia. Of course this plan would leave the German warlordship
  intact and would bring no sort of assurance of a prolonged peace.
  It would, too, leave European Russia at least to German mercy,
  and would leave the Baltic and the Black Seas practically wholly
  under German influence. As for the people of Russia, there seems
  small chance for them in this second contingency. The only way
  to save them is to win a decisive victory.
  <br><br>As matters stand to-day Lord Lansdowne and his friends (how
  numerous they are nobody knows) are the loudest spokesmen for
  such a peace as can be made. But it is talked much of in Asquith
  circles that the time may come when this policy will be led by
  Mr. Asquith, in a form somewhat modified from the Lansdowne formula.
  Mr. Asquith has up to this time patriotically supported the government
  and he himself has said nothing in public which could warrant
  linking his name with an early peace-seeking policy. But his
  friends openly and incessantly predict that he will, at a favourable
  moment, take this cue. I myself can hardly believe it. Political
  victory in Great Britain doesn't now lie in that direction.
  <br><br>The dominant section of opinion is much grieved at Russia's
  surrender, but they refuse to be discouraged by it. They recall
  how Napoleon overran most of Europe, and the French held practically
  none of his conquests after his fall
  <br><br>Such real political danger as exists here---if any exists,
  of which I am not quite sure---comes not only now mainly of this
  split in public opinion but also and to a greater degree from
  the personal enemies of the present government. Lloyd George
  is kept in power because he is the most energetic man in sight---by
  far. Many who support him do not like him nor trust him---except
  that nobody doubts his supreme earnestness to win the war. On
  all other subjects he has enemies of old and he makes new ones.
  His intense and superb energy has saved him in two notable crises.
  His dismissal of Sir William Robertson<ref>Sir Henry Wilson had recently succeeded Sir William Robertson as Chief of the Imperial General Staff.</ref>has been accepted in the interest
  of greater unity of military control, but it was a dangerous
  rapids that he shot, for he didn't do it tactfully. Yet there's
  a certain danger to the present powers in the feeling that some
  of them are wearing out. Parliament itself---an old one now---is
  thought to have gone stale. Bonar Law is overworked and tired;
  Balfour is often said to be too philosophical and languid; but,
  when this feeling seems in danger of taking definite shape, he
  makes a clearer statement than anybody else and catches on his
  feet. The man of new energy, not yet fagged, is Geddes,<ref>First Lord. of the Admiralty.</ref>whose frankness carries. conviction.
<br><br>.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To the President</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, March 17,1918.
  <br><br>DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
  <br><br>The rather impatient and unappreciative remarks made by the
  Prime Minister before a large meeting of preachers of the &quot;free&quot;
  churches about a League of Nations reminds me to write you about
  the state of British opinion on that subject. What Lloyd George
  said to these preachers is regrettable because it showed a certain
  impatience of mind from which he sometimes suffers; but it is
  only fair to him to say that his remarks that day did not express
  a settled opinion. For on more than one previous occasion he
  has spoken of the subject in a wholly different tone---much more
  appreciatively. On that particular day he had in mind only the
  overwhelming necessity to win the war---other things, all other
  things must wait. In a way this is his constant mood---the mood
  to make everybody feel that the only present duty is to win the
  war. He has been accused of almost every defect in the calendar
  except of slackness about the war. Nobody has ever doubted his
  earnestness nor his energy about that And the universal confidence
  in his energy and earnestness is what keeps him in office. Nobody
  sees any other man who can push and inspire as well as he does.
  It would be a mistake, therefore, to pay too much heed to any
  particular utterance of this electrical creature of moods, on
  any subject.
  <br><br>Nevertheless, he hasn't thought out the project of a league
  to enforce peace further than to see the difficulties. He sees
  that such a league might mean, in theory at least, the giving
  over in some possible crisis the command of the British Fleet
  to an officer of some other nationality. That's unthinkable to
  any red-blooded son of these islands. Seeing a theoretical possibility
  even of raising such a question, the British mind stops and refuses
  to go further---refuses in most cases even to inquire seriously
  whether any such contingency is ever likely to come.
  <br><br>The British Grand Fleet, in fact, is a subject that stands
  alone in power and value and in difficulties. It classifies itself
  with nothing else. Since over and over again it has saved these
  islands from invasion when nothing else could have saved them
  and since during this war in particular it has saved the world
  from German conquest---as every Englishman believes---it lies
  in their reverence and their gratitude and their abiding convictions
  as a necessary and perpetual shield so long as Great Britain
  shall endure. If the Germans are thrashed to a frazzle (and we
  haven't altogether done that yet) and we set about putting the
  world in order, when we come to discuss Disarmament, the British
  Fleet will be the most difficult item in the world to dispose
  of. It is not only a Fact, with a great and saying history, it
  is also a sacred Tradition and an Article of Faith.
  <br><br>The first reason, therefore, why the British general mind
  has not firmly got hold on a league is the instinctive fear that
  the formation of any league may in some conceivable way affect
  the Grand Fleet. Another reason is the general inability of a
  somewhat slow public opinion to take hold on more than one subject
  at a time or more than one urgent part of one subject. The One
  Subject, of course, is winning the war. Since everything else
  depends on that, everything else must wait on that.
  <br><br>The League, therefore, has not taken hold on the public imagination
  here as it has in the United States. The large mass of the people
  have not thought seriously about it: it has not been strongly
  and persistently presented to the mass of the people. There is
  no popular or general organization to promote it. There is even,
  here and there, condemnation of the idea. The (London) <I>Morning
  Post, </I>for example, goes out of its way once in a while to
  show the wickedness of the idea because, so it argues, it will
  involve the sacrifice, more or less, of nationality. But the
  <I>Morning Post</I> is<I> </I>impervious to new ideas and is
  above all things critical in its activities and very seldom constructive.
  The typical Tory mind in general sees no good in the idea. The
  typical Tory mind is the insular mind.
  <br><br>On the other hand, the League idea is understood as a necessity
  and heartily approved by two powerful sections of public opinion---(1)
  the group of public men who have given attention to it, such
  as Bryce, Lord Robert Cecil, and the like, and (2) some of the
  best and strongest leaders of Labour. There is good reason to
  hope that whenever a fight and an agitation is made for a League
  these two sections of public opinion will win; but an agitation
  and a fight must come. Lord Bryce, in the intervals of his work,
  as chairman of a committee to make a plan for the reorganization
  of the House of Lords, which, he remarked to me the other day,
  &quot;involves as much labour as a Government Department,&quot;
  has fits of impatience about pushing a campaign for a league,
  and so have a few other men. They ask me if it be not possible
  to have good American public speakers come here---privately,
  of course, and in no way connected with our Government nor speaking
  for it---to explain the American movement for a League in order
  to arouse a public sentiment on the subject.
  <br><br>Thus the case stands at present.
  <br><br>Truth and error alike and odd admixtures of them come in waves
  over this censored land where one can seldom determine what is
  true, before the event, from the newspapers. &quot;News&quot;
  travels by word of mouth, and information that one can depend
  on is got by personal inquiry from sources that can be trusted.
  <br><br>There is a curious wave of fear just now about what Labour
  may do, and the common gossip has it that there is grave danger
  in the situation. I can find no basis for such a fear. I have
  talked with labour leaders and I have talked with members of
  the government who know most about the subject. There is not
  a satisfactory situation---there has not been since the war began.
  There has been a continuous series of labour &quot;crises,&quot;
  and there have been a good many embarrassing strikes, all of
  which have first been hushed up and settled---at least postponed.
  One cause of continuous trouble has been the notion held by the
  Unions, sometimes right and sometimes wrong, that the employers
  were making abnormal profits and that they were not getting their
  due share. There have been and are also other causes of trouble.
  It was a continuous quarrel even in peace times. But I can find
  no especial cause of fear now. Many of the Unions have had such
  advances of wages that the Government has been severely criticized
  for giving in. Just lately a large wing of the Labour Party put
  forth its war aims which---with relatively unimportant exceptions---coincide
  with the best declarations made by the Government's own spokesmen.
  <br><br>Of course, no prudent man would venture to make dogmatic predictions.
  There have been times when for brief intervals any one would
  have been tempted to fear that these quarrels might cause an
  unsatisfactory conclusion of the war. But the undoubted patriotism
  of the British workman has every time saved the situation. While
  a danger point does lie here, there is no reason to be more fearful
  now than at any preceding time when no especial trouble was brewing.
  This wave of gossip and fear has no right to sweep over the country
  now.
  <br><br>Labour hopes and expects and is preparing to win the next
  General Election---whether with good reason or not I cannot guess.
  But most men expect it to win the Government at some time---most
  of them after the war. I recall that Lord Grey once said to me,
  before the war began, that a general political success of the
  Labour Party was soon to be expected.
  <br><br>Another wave which, I hear, has swept over Rome as well as
  London is a wave of early peace expectation. The British newspapers
  have lately been encouraging this by mysterious phrases. Some
  men here of good sense and sound judgment think that this is
  the result of the so-called German &quot;peace offensive,&quot;
  which makes the present the most dangerous period of the war.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To David F. Houston</FONT></I><ref>Secretary of Agriculture.</ref></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, March 23, 1918.
  <br><br>MY DEAR HOUSTON:
  <br><br>It is very kind of you indeed to write so generously about
  the British visitors who are invading our sacred premises, such
  as the Archbishop of York, and it is good to hear from you anyhow
  about any subject and I needn't say that it is quite a rare experience
  also. I wish you would take a little of your abundant leisure
  and devote it to good letters to me.
  <br><br>And in some one of your letters tell me this.---The British
  send over men of this class that you have written about to see
  us, but they invite over here---and we permit to come---cranks
  on prohibition, experts in the investigation of crime, short-haired
  women who wish to see how British babies are reared, peace cranks
  and freaks of other kinds.<ref>See Chapter XXIV</ref>
  Our Government apparently won't let plain, honest, normal civilians
  come over, but if a fellow comes along who wants to investigate
  some monstrosity then one half of the Senate, one half of the
  House of Representatives, and a number of the executive offices
  of the Government give him the most cordial letters. Now there
  are many things, of course, that I don't know, but it has been
  my fate to have a pretty extensive acquaintance with cranks of
  every description in the United States. I don't think there is
  any breed of them that didn't haunt my office while I was an
  editor. Now I am surely punished for all my past sins by having
  those fellows descend on me here. I know them, nearly all, from
  past experience and now just for the sake of keeping the world
  as quiet as possible I have to give them time here far out of
  proportion to their value.
  <br><br>Now, out of your great wisdom, I wish you would explain to
  me why the deuce we let all this crew come over here instead
  of sending a shipload of perfectly normal, dignified, and right-minded
  gentlemen. These thug reformers!---Baker will be here in a day
  or two and if I can remember it I am going to suggest to him
  that he round them all up and put them in the trenches in France
  where those of them who have so far escaped the gallows ought
  to be put.
  <br><br>I am much obliged to have the illuminating statement about
  our crops. I am going to show it to certain gentlemen here who
  will be much cheered by it. By gracious, you ought to hear their
  appreciation of what we are doing! We are not doing it for the
  sake of their appreciation, but if we were out to win it we could
  not do it better. Down at bottom the Englishman is a good fellow.
  He has his faults but he doesn't get tired and he doesn't suffer
  spasms of emotion.
  <br><br>Give my love to Mrs. Houston, and do sit down and write me
  a good long letter---a whole series of them, in fact.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Believe me, always most heartily yours,
    <br><br>WALTER HINES PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>.


<br><br><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">.</FONT>


<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Frank L. Polk</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, March 22, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR MR. POLK:
  <br><br>You are good enough to mention the fact that the Embassy has
  some sort of grievance against the Department. Of course it has,
  and you are, possibly, the only man that can remove it. It is
  this: You don't come here to see the war and this government
  and these people who are again saving the world as we are now
  saving them. I thank Heaven and the Administration for Secretary
  Baker's visit. It is a dramatic moment in the history of the
  race, of democracy, and of the world. The State Department has
  the duty to deal with foreign affairs---the especial duty---and
  yet no man in the State Department has been here since the war
  began. This doesn't look pretty and it won't look pretty when
  the much over-worked &quot;future historian &quot; writes it
  down in a book. Remove that grievance.
  <br><br>The most interesting thing going on in the world to-day ---a
  thing that in History will transcend the war and be reckoned
  its greatest gain---is the high leadership of the President in
  formulating the struggle, in putting its aims high, and in taking
  the democratic lead in the world, a lead that will make the world
  over---and in taking the democratic lead of the English-speaking
  folk. Next most impressive to that is to watch the British response
  to that lead. Already they have doubled the number of their voters,
  and even more important definite steps in Democracy will be taken.
  My aim--and it's the only way to save the world---is to lead
  the British in this direction. They are the most easily teachable
  people in our way of thinking and of doing. Of course everybody
  who works toward such an aim provokes the cry from a lot of fools
  among us who accuse him of toadying to the English and of &quot;accepting
  the conventional English conclusion.&quot; They had as well talk
  of missionaries to India accepting Confucius or Buddha. Their
  fleet has saved us four or five times. It's about time we were
  saying them from this bloody Thing that we call Europe, for our
  sake and for theirs.
  <br><br>The bloody Thing will get us all if we don't fight our level
  best; and .it's only by <I>our</I> help that we'll be saved.
  That clearly gives us the leadership. Everybody sees that. Everybody
  acknowledges it. The President authoritatively speaks it---speaks
  leadership on a higher level than it was ever spoken before to
  the whole world. As soon as we get this fighting job over, the
  world procession toward freedom---our kind of freedom---will
  begin under our lead. This being so, can't you delegate the writing
  of telegrams about &quot;facilitating the license to ship poppy
  seed to McKesson and Robbins,&quot; and come over and see big
  world-forces at work?
  <br><br>I cannot express my satisfaction at Secretary Baker's visit.
  It was historic---the first member of the Cabinet, I think, who
  ever came here while he held office. He made a great impression
  and received a hearty welcome.
  <br><br>That's the only grievance I can at the moment unload on you.
  We're passing out of our old era of isolation. These benighted
  heathen on this island whom we'll yet save (since they are well
  worth saying) will be with us as we need them in future years
  and centuries. Come, help us heighten this fine spirit.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Always heartily yours,
    <br><br>WALTER HINES PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>P. S. You'd see how big our country looks from a distance.
  It's gigantic, I assure you.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>.

<br><br>The above letter was written on what was perhaps the darkest
day of the whole war. The German attack on the Western Front,
which had been long expected, had now been launched, and, at the
moment that Page was penning this cheery note to Mr. Polk, the
German armies had broken through the British defenses, had pushed
their lines forty miles ahead, and, in the judgment of many military
men, had Paris almost certainly within their grasp. A great German
gun, placed about seventy miles from the French capital, was dropping
shells upon the apparently doomed city. This attack had been regarded
as inevitable since the collapse of Russia, which had enabled
the Germans to concentrate practically all their armies on the
Western Front.

<br><br>The world does not yet fully comprehend the devastating effect
of this apparently successful attack upon the allied morale. British
statesmen and British soldiers made no attempt to conceal from
official Americans the desperate state of affairs. It was the
expectation that the Germans might reach Calais and thence invade
England. The War Office discussed these probabilities most freely
with Colonel Slocum, the American military attach&eacute;. The
simple fact was that both the French and the British armies were
practically bled white.

<br><br>&quot;For God's sake, get your men over!&quot; they urged General
Slocum. &quot;You have got to finish it.&quot;

<br><br>Page was writing urgently to President Wilson to the same purpose.
Send the men and send them at once. &quot;I pray God,&quot; were
his solemn words to Mr. Wilson,&quot;that you will not be too
late! &quot;

<br><br>One propitious event had taken place at the same time as the
opening of the great German offensive. Mr. Newton D. Baker, the
American Secretary of War, had left quietly for France in late
February, 1918, and had reached the Western Front in time to obtain
a first-hand sight of the great March drive. No visit in history
has ever been better timed, and no event could have better played
into Page's hands. He had been urging Washington to send all available
forces to France at the earliest possible date; he knew, as probably
few other men knew, the extent to which the Allies were depending
upon American troops to give the final blow to Germany; and the
arrival of Secretary Baker at the scene of action gave him the
opportunity to make a personal appeal. Page immediately communicated
with the Secretary and persuaded him to come at once to London
for a consultation with British military and political leaders.
The Secretary spent only three days in London, but the visit,
brief as it was, had historic consequences. He had many consultations
with the British military men; he entered into their plans with
enthusiasm; he himself received many ideas that afterward took
shape in action, and the British Government obtained from him
first-hand information as to the progress of the American Army
and the American determination to cooperate to the last man and
the last dollar.&quot; Baker went straight back to France,&quot;
Page wrote to his son Arthur, &quot;and our whole cooperation
began.&quot;

<br><br>Page gave a dinner to Mr. Baker at the Embassy on March 23rd---two
days after the great March drive had begun. This occasion gave
the visitor a memorable glimpse of the British temperament. Mr.
Lloyd George, Mr. Balfour, Lord Derby, the War Secretary, General
Biddle, of the United States Army, and Admiral Sims were the Ambassador's
guests. Though the mighty issues then overhanging the world were
not ignored in the conversation the atmosphere hardly suggested
that the existence of the British Empire, indeed that of civilization
itself, was that very night hanging in the balance. Possibly it
was the general sombreness of events that caused these British
statesmen to find a certain relief in jocular small talk and reminiscence.
For the larger part of the evening not a word was said about the
progress of the German armies in France. Mr. Lloyd George and
Mr. Balfour, seated on opposite sides of the table, apparently
found relaxation in reviewing their political careers and especially
their oldtime political battles. They would laughingly recall
occasions when, in American parlance, they had put each other
&quot;in a hole&quot;; the exigencies of war had now made these
two men colleagues in the same government, but the twenty years
preceding 1914 they had spent in political antagonism. Page's
guests on this occasion learned much political history of the
early twentieth century, and the mutual confessions of Mr. Lloyd
George and Mr. Balfour gave these two men an insight into each
others' motives and manoeuvres which was almost as revealing.
&quot;Yes, you caught me that time,&quot; Mr. Lloyd George would
say, and then he would counter with an episode of a political
battle in which he had got the better of Mr. Balfour. The whole
talk was lively and bantering, and accompanied with much laughter;
and all this time shells from that long-distance gun were dropping
at fifteen minute intervals upon the devoted women and children
of Paris and the Germans were every hour driving the British back
in disorder. At times the conversation took a more philosophic
turn. Would the men present like to go back twenty-five years
and live their lives all over again? The practically unanimous
decision of every man was that he would not wish to do so.

<br><br>All this, of course, was merely on the surface; despite the
laughter and the banter, there was only one thing which engrossed
the Ambassador's guests, although there were not many references
to it. That was the struggle which was then taking place in France.
At intervals Mr. Lloyd George would send one of the guests, evidently
a secretary, from the room. The latter, on his return, would whisper
something in the Prime Minister's ear, but more frequently he
would merely shake his head. Evidently he had been sent to obtain
the latest news of the battle.

<br><br>At one point the Prime Minister did refer to the great things
taking place in France.

<br><br>&quot;This battle means one thing,&quot; he said.. &quot;That
is a generalissimo.&quot;

<br><br>&quot;Why couldn't you have taken this step long ago?&quot;
Admiral Sims asked Mr. Lloyd George.

<br><br>The answer came like a flash.

<br><br>&quot;If the cabinet two weeks ago had suggested placing the
British Army under a foreign general, it would have fallen. Every
cabinet in Europe would also have fallen, had it suggested such
a thing.&quot;

<br><br>.


<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">Memorandum on Secretary Baker's visit</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>Secretary Baker's visit here, brief as it was, gave the heartiest
  satisfaction. So far as I know, he is the first member of an
  American Cabinet who ever came to England while he held office,
  as Mr. Balfour was the first member of a British Cabinet who
  ever went to the United States while he held office. The great
  governments of the English-speaking folk have surely dealt with
  one another with mighty elongated tongs. Governments of democracies
  are not exactly instruments of precision. But they are at least
  human. But personal and human neglect of one another by these
  two governments over so long a period is an astonishing fact
  in our history. The wonder is that we haven't had more than two
  wars. And it is no wonder that the ignorance of Englishmen about
  America and the American ignorance of England are monumental,
  stupendous, amazing, passing understanding. I have on my mantelpiece
  a statuette of Benjamin Franklin, an excellent and unmistakable
  likeness which was made here during his lifetime; and the inscription
  burnt on its base is <I>Geo. Washington. </I>It serves me many
  a good turn with my English friends. I use it as a measure of
  their ignorance of us. Of course this is a mere little error
  of a statuette-maker, an error, moreover, of a hundred years
  ago. But it tells the story of to-day also. If I had to name
  the largest and most indelible impression that has been made
  on me during my five years' work here, I should say the ignorance
  and aloofness of the two peoples---not an ignorance of big essential
  facts but of personalities and temperaments---such as never occur
  except between men who had never seen one another.
  <br><br>But I was writing about Mr. Baker's visit and I've got a long
  way from that. I doubt if he knows himself what gratification
  it gave; for these men here have spoken to me about it as they
  could not speak to him.
  <br><br>Here is an odd fact: For sixty years, so far as I know, members
  of the Administration have had personal acquaintance with some
  of the men in power in Salvador, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Peru,
  etc., etc., and members of the British Government have had personal
  acquaintance with some men in authority in Portugal, Serbia,
  Montenegro and Monte Carlo; but during this time (with the single
  exception of John Hay) I think no member of any Administration
  had a real personal acquaintance while he held office with any
  member of the British Government while he held office, and vice
  versa---till Mr. Balfour's visit. Suspicion grows out of ignorance.
  The longer I live here the more astonished I become at the fundamental
  ignorance of the British about us and of our fundamental ignorance
  about them. So colossal is this ignorance that every American
  sent here is supposed to be taken in, to become Anglophile; and
  often when one undertakes to enlighten Englishmen about the United
  States one becomes aware of a feeling inside the English of unbelief,
  as if he said, &quot; Oh, well! you are one of those queer people
  who believe in republican government.&quot; All this is simply
  amazing. Poor Admiral Sims sometimes has a sort of mania, a delusion
  that nobody at Washington trusts his judgment because he said
  seven or eight years ago that he liked the English. Yet every
  naval officer who comes here, I understand, shares his views
  about practically every important naval problem or question.
  I don't deserve the compliment (it's a very high one) that some
  of my secretaries sometimes pay me when they say that I am the
  only man they know who tries to tell the whole truth to our Government
  in favour of the Englishman as well as against him. It is certain
  that American public opinion is universally supposed to suspect
  any American who tries to do anything with the British lion except
  to twist his tail---a supposition that I never believed to be
  true.---But it is true that the mutual ignorance is as high as
  the Andes and as deep as the ocean. Personal acquaintance removes
  it and nothing else will.
<br><br>.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Arthur W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>American Embassy,<BR>
  London, April 7, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR ARTHUR:
  <br><br>I daresay you remember this epic:
  <BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Old Morgan's wife made butter and cheese; <BR>
    Old Morgan drank the whey.<BR>
    There came a wind from West to East <BR>
    And blew Old Morgan away.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <br><br>I'm Old Morgan and your mother got ashamed of my wheyness
  and made the doctor prescribe cream for me. There's never been
  such a luxury, and anybody who supposes that I am now going to
  get fat and have my cream stopped simply doesn't know me. So,
  you see why I'm intent on shredded wheat biscuits. That's about
  the best form of real wheat that will keep. And there's no getting
  real wheat-stuff, pure and simple, in any other form.
  <br><br>There's no use in talking about starving people---except perhaps
  in India and China. White men can live on anything. The English
  could fight a century on cabbage and Brussels sprouts. I've given
  up hope of starving the Germans. A gut of dogmeat or horse flesh
  and a potato will keep them in fighting trim forever. I've read
  daily for two years of impending starvation across the Rhine;
  but I never even now hear of any dead ones from hunger. Cold
  steel or lead is the only fatal dose for them.
  <br><br>Therefore I know that shredded wheat will carry me through.
  <br><br>You'll see, I hope, from the clippings that I enclose that
  I'm not done for yet anyhow. Two speeches a day is no small stunt;
  and I did it again yesterday---hand running; and I went out to
  dinner afterward. It was a notable occasion---this celebration
  of the anniversary of our coming into the war.<ref>This meeting, on April 6, 1918, was held at the Mansion House. Page and Mr. Balfour were the chief speakers.</ref>
  <br><br>Nobody here knows definitely just what to fear from the big
  battle; but everybody fears more or less. It's a critical time---very.
  I am told that that long-range gunning of Paris is the worst
  form of frightfulness yet tried. The shells do not kill a great
  many people. But their falling every fifteen minutes gets on
  people's nerves and they can't sleep. I hear they are leaving
  Paris in great numbers. Since the big battle began and the Germans
  have needed all their planes and more in France, they've let
  London alone. But nobody knows when they will begin again.
  <br><br>Nobody knows any future thing about the war, and everybody
  faces a fear.
  <br><br>Secretary Baker stayed with me the two days and three nights
  he was here. He made a good impression but he received a better
  one. He now knows something about the war. I had at dinner to
  meet him:</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Lloyd George, Prime Minister.<BR>
    Balfour, Foreign Secretary.<BR>
    The Chief of Staff.<BR>
    Lord Derby, War Secretary.<BR>
    General Biddle, U. S. A., in command in London.<BR>
    Admiral Sims, U. S. N.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <br><br>The talk was to the point-good and earnest. Baker went straight
  back to France and our <I>whole </I>cooperation began. With the
  first group of four he had conferences besides for two days.
  His coming was an admirable move.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Yours affectionately,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.
  
<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Ralph W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, April 13, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR RALPH:
  <br><br>Your cheery letters about entertaining governors, planting
  trees and shrubbery and your mother's little orchard give us
  much pleasure. The Southern Pines paper brings news of very great
  damage to the peach crop. I hope it is much exaggerated . Is
  it?
  <br><br>We haven't any news here, and I send you my weekly note only
  to keep my record clear. The great battle---no one talks or thinks
  of anything else. We have suffered and still suffer a good deal
  of fear and anxiety, with real reason, too. But the military
  men are reassuring. Yet I don't know just how far to trust their
  judgment or to share their hopes. Certainly this is the most
  dangerous situation that modern civilization was ever put in.
  If we can keep them from winning any <I>great </I>objective,
  like Paris or a channel port, we ought to end the war this year.
  If not, either they win or at the least prolong the war indefinitely.
  It's a hazardous and trying time.
  <br><br>There were never such casualties on either side as now. Such
  a bloody business cannot keep up all summer. But before everybody
  is killed or a decisive conclusion is reached, the armies will,
  no doubt, dig themselves in and take a period of comparative
  rest. People here see and feel the great danger. But the extra
  effort now may come too late. Still we keep up good hope. The
  British are hard to whip. They never give up. And as for the
  French army, I always remember Verdun and keep my courage up.
  <br><br>The wounded are coming over by the thousand. We are incomparably
  busy and in great anxiety about the result (though still pretty
  firm in the belief that the Germans will lose), and luckily we
  keep very well.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Affectionately,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Ralph W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, April 7, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR RALPH:
  <br><br>There used to be a country parson down in Wake County who,
  when other subjects were talked out, always took up the pleasing
  topic of saying your soul. That's the way your mother and I do---with
  the subject of going home. We talk over the battle, we talk over
  the boys, we talk over military and naval problems, we discuss
  the weather and all the babies, and then take up politics, and
  talk over the gossip of the wiseacres; but we seldom finish a
  conversation without discussing going home. And we reach just
  about as clear a conclusion on our topic as the country parson
  reached on his. I've had the doctors going over me (or rather
  your mother has) as an expert accountant goes over your books;
  and I tried to bribe them to say that I oughtn't to continue
  my arduous duties here longer. They wouldn't say any such thing.
  Thus that device failed---dead. It looks as if I were destined
  for a green old age and no martyr business at all.
  <br><br>All this is disappointing; and I don't see what to do but
  to go on. I can't keep from hoping that the big battle may throw
  some light on the subject; but there's no telling when the big
  battle will end. Nothing ends---that's the trouble. I sometimes
  feel that the war may never end, that it may last as the Napoleonic
  Wars did, for 20 years; and before that time we'll all have guns
  that shoot 100 miles. We can stay at home and indefinitely bombard
  the enemy across the Rhine-have an endless battle at long range.
  <br><br>So, we stick to it, and give the peach trees time to grow
  up.
  <br><br>We had a big day in London yesterday---the anniversary of
  our entry into the war. I send you some newspaper clippings about
  it.
  <br><br>The next best news is that we have a little actual sunshine---a
  very rare thing---and some of the weather is now almost decent.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Affectionately,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>


<hr>

<references/>


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[[Main Page | WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XXV'''
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