The Treaty of London, signed in 1839 by Great Britain, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and the Netherlands, had guaranteed the independence and neutrality of Belgium. Thus, the German invasion of Belgium presented the British government with a challenge to international morality and national honor, while the possibility of Germany gaining naval bases on the Channel coast offered a further threat to its national security. Britain warned Germany on August 4 that it would go to war if the invasion of Belgium continued. When the British ambassador met with German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg that evening, the latter announced his disbelief that Britain and Germany would enter battle over “a scrap of paper.” Upon the expiration of the ultimatum at 11 P.M. that night, the entire British Empire, including India and the Dominions of Canada, Newfoundland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, went to war. Five days later, Ambassador Page wrote to President Wilson of the impact the expanded conflict was having on the U.S. Embassy in London.
Belated, I fear, beyond any value or interest.
London, Sunday, August 9, 1914.
Dear Mr. President:
God save us! What a week it has been! Last Sunday (Aug. 2) I was down here at the cottage I have taken for the summer—an hour out of London—uneasy because of the apparent danger and of what Sir Edward Grey had told me. During the day people began to go to the Embassy but not in great numbers—merely to ask what they should do in case of war. The Secretary whom I had left in charge on Sunday telephoned me every few hours and laughingly told funny experiences with nervous women who came in and asked absurd questions. Of course, we all knew the grave danger that war might come, but nobody could, by the wildest imagination, guess at what awaited us. On Monday I was at the Embassy earlier than I think I had ever been there before, and every member of the staff was already on duty. Before breakfast-time the place was filled—packed like sardines. This was two days before war was declared. There was no chance to talk to individuals, such was the jam. I got on a chair and explained that I had already telegraphed to Washington—on Saturday—suggesting the sending of money and ships, and asking them to be patient. I made a speech to them several times during the day, and kept the Secretaries doing so at intervals. More than 2,000 Americans crowded into those offices (which are not large) that day. We were kept there till two o’clock in the morning. The Embassy has not been closed since.
Mr. Kent of the Bankers’ Trust Co. in New York volunteered to form an American Citizens’ Relief Committee. He and other men of experience and influence organized themselves at the Savoy Hotel. The hotel gave the use of nearly a whole floor. They organized themselves quickly and admirably and got information about steamships and currency, etc. We began to send callers at the Embassy to this Committee for such information. The banks were all closed for four days. These men got money enough—put it up themselves and used their English banking friends for help—to relieve all cases of actual want of cash that came to them. Tuesday the crowd at the Embassy was still great but less. The big space at the Savoy Hotel gave them room to talk to one another and to get relief for immediate needs. By that time I had accepted the volunteer service of five or six men* to help us explain to the people—and they have all worked manfully day and night. We now have an orderly organization at four places—the Embassy, the Consul-General’s Office, the Savoy, and The American Society in London, and everything is going well. We now have offices for inquiries & for disbursing agents also. Those two first days, there was, of course, great confusion. Crazy men and weeping women were imploring and cursing and demanding—God knows it was bedlam turned loose. I have been called a man of the greatest genius for an emergency by some, by others a d—d fool, by others every epithet between these extremes. Men shook English banknotes in my face and demanded U. S. money and swore our Government and its agents ought all to be shot. Women expected me to hand them steamship tickets home. When some found out they could not get tickets on the transports (which they assumed would sail the next day) they accused me of favoritism. European folk regard an Ambassador as a man who represents their government; Americans, as a personal servant to secure them state-rooms! These absurd experiences will give you a hint of the panic. But now it has worked out all right, thanks to the Savoy Committee and other helpers.
Meantime, of course, our telegrams and mail increased almost as much as our callers. I have filled the place with stenographers, I have got the Savoy people to answer certain classes of letters, and we have caught up. My own time and the time of two of the Secretaries has been almost wholly taken with governmental problems: hundreds of questions have come in from every quarter that were never asked before. But even with them we have now practically caught up—it has been a wonderful week!
Then the Austrian Ambassador came to give us his Embassy—to take over his business. Every detail was arranged. The next morning I called on him to assume charge and to say good bye, when he told me that he was not yet going! That was a stroke of genius by Sir Edward Grey who informed him that Austria had not given England cause for war. That may work out, or it may not. Pray Heaven it may! Poor Mensdorff, the Austrian Ambassador, does not know where he is. He is practically shut up in his guarded Embassy, weeping and waiting the decree of fate.
Then came the declaration of war, most dramatically. Tuesday night five minutes after the ultimatum expired the Admiralty telegraphed to the fleet “Go.” In a few minutes the answer came back “Off.” Soldiers began to march through the city going to the railway stations. An indescribable crowd so blocked the streets about the Admiralty, the War Office, and the Foreign Office, that at one o’clock in the morning I had to drive in my car by other streets to get home.
The next day the German Embassy was turned over to me. I went to see the German Ambassador at three o’clock in the afternoon. He came down in his pajamas—a crazy man. I feared he might literally go mad. He is of the anti-war party and he had done his best and utterly failed. This interview was one of the most pathetic experiences of my life. The poor man had not slept for several nights. Then came the crowds of frightened Germans, afraid that they would be arrested. They besieged the German Embassy and our Embassy. A servant in the German Embassy who went over the house with one of our men came to the desk of Princess Lichnowsky, the Ambassador’s wife. A photo of the German Emperor lay on the desk, face down. The man said: “She threw it down and said: ‘That is the swine that did this,’” and she drew a pig on the blotting pad, wh. is still there. I put one of our naval officers in the German Embassy, put the U. S. on the door to protect it, and we began business there, too. Our naval officer has moved in—sleeps there. He has an assistant, a stenographer, a messenger; and I gave him the German automobile and chauffeur and two English servants that were left there. He has the job well in hand now, under my and Laughlin’s supervision. But this has brought still another new lot of diplomatic and governmental problems—a lot of them. Three enormous German banks in London have, of course, been closed. Their managers pray for my aid. Howling women come and say their innocent German husbands have been arrested as spies. English, Germans, Americans—everybody has daughters and wives and invalid grandmothers alone in Germany. In God’s name, they ask, what can I do for them? Here come stacks of letters sent under the impression that I can send them to Germany. But the German business is already well in hand and I think that that will take little of my own time and will give little trouble. I shall send a report about it in detail to the Department the very first day I can find time to write it. In spite of the effort of the English Government to remain at peace with Austria, I fear I shall yet have the Austrian Embassy too. But I can attend to it.
Now, however, comes the financial job of wisely using the $300,000 which I shall have tomorrow. I am using Mr. Chandler Anderson as counsel, of course. I have appointed a Committee—Skinner, the Consul-General, Lieut. Commander McCrary of our Navy, Kent of the Bankers’ Trust Co., N. Y., and one other man yet to be chosen—to advise, after investigation, about every proposed expenditure. Anderson has been at work all day today drawing up proper forms etc. to fit the Department’s very excellent instructions. I have the feeling that more of that money may be wisely spent in helping to get people off the continent (except in France, where they seem admirably to be managing it, under Herrick) than is immediately needed in England. All this merely to show you the diversity and multiplicity of the job.
I am having a card catalogue, each containing a sort of who’s who, of all Americans in Europe of whom we hear. This will be ready by the time the Tennessee comes. Fifty or more stranded Americans—men and women—are doing this work free. I have a member of Congress in the general reception room of the Embassy answering people’s questions—three other volunteers as well.
We had a world of confusion for two or three days. But all this work is now well organized and it can be continued without confusion or cross-purposes. I meet committees and lay plans and read and write telegrams from the time I wake till I go to bed. But, since it is now all in order, it is easy. Of course I am running up the expenses of the Embassy—there is no help for that; but the bill will be really exceedingly small because of the volunteer work—for awhile. I have not and shall not consider the expense of whatever it seems absolutely necessary to do—of other things, I shall always consider the expense most critically. Everybody is working with everybody else in the finest possible spirit. I have made out a sort of military order to the Embassy staff, detailing one man with clerks for each night and forbidding the others to stay there till midnight. None of us slept more than a few hours last week. It was not the work that kept them after the first night or two, but the sheer excitement of this awful cataclysm. All London has been awake for a week. Soldiers are marching day and night; immense throngs block the streets about the government offices; thousands and thousands throng before the Palace every night till the King comes out on the balcony. But they are all very orderly. Every day Germans are arrested on suspicion; and several of them have committed suicide. Yesterday one poor American woman yielded to the excitement and cut her throat. I find it hard to get about much. People stop me on the street, follow me to luncheon, grab me as I come out of any committee meeting—to know my opinion of this or that—how can they get home? Will such-and-such a boat fly the American flag? Why did I take the German Embassy? I receive yet a great deal of criticism for having the German Embassy—from Americans chiefly. I have to fight my way about and rush to an automobile. I have had to buy me a second one to keep up the racket. Buy? no—only bargain for it, for I have not any money. But everybody is considerate, and that makes no matter for the moment. This little cottage in an out-of-the-way place 25 miles from London where I am trying to write and sleep has been found by people today, who come in automobiles to know how they may reach their sick kinspeople in Germany. I had not had a bath for three days: as soon as I got in the tub, the telephone rang an “urgent” call!
Upon my word, if one could forget the awful tragedy, all this experience would be worth a life-time of common-place. One surprise follows another so rapidly that one loses all sense of time: it seems an age since last Sunday.
I shall never forget Sir Edward Grey’s telling me of the ultimatum—while he wept; nor the poor German Ambassador who has lost in his high game—almost a demented man; nor the King as he declaimed at me for half-an-hour and threw up his hands and said, “My God, Mr. Page, what else could we do?” Nor the Austrian Ambassador’s wringing his hands and weeping and crying out “My dear Colleague, my dear colleague.”
Along with all this tragedy come two reverend American peace-delegates who got out of Germany by the skin of their teeth and complain that they lost all the clothes they had except what they had on. “Don’t complain,” said I, “but thank God you saved your skins.” Everybody has forgotten what war means—forgotten that folks get hurt. But they are coming around to it now. A U. S. Senator telegraphs me “Send my wife and daughter home on the first ship.” Ladies and gentlemen filled the steerage of that ship, not a bunk left; and his wife and daughter are found three days later sitting in a swell hotel waiting for me to bring them state-room tickets on a silver tray! One of my young fellows in the Embassy rushes into my office saying that a man from Boston with letters of introduction from Senators and Governors and Secretaries et al. was demanding tickets of admission to a picture-gallery, and a Secretary to escort him there. “What shall I do with him?” “Put his proposal to a vote of the 200 Americans in the room and see them draw and quarter him.” I have not yet heard what happened. A woman writes me four pages to prove how dearly she loves my sister and invites me to her hotel—5 miles away—“please to tell her about the sailing of the steamships.” Six American preachers pass a resolution unanimously “urging our Ambassador to telegraph our beloved, peace-loving President to stop this awful war”; and they come with simple solemnity to present their resolution. Lord save us, what a world!
And this awful tragedy moves on to—what? We do not know what is really happening, so strict is the censorship. But it seems inevitable to me that Germany will be beaten, after a long while, that the horrid period of alliances and armaments will not come again, that England will gain even more of the earth’s surface, that Russia may next play the menace; that all Europe (so much as survives) will be bankrupt; that relatively we shall be immensely stronger financially and politically—there must surely come many great changes—very many, yet undreamed of. Be ready; for you will be called on to compose this huge quarrel. I thank Heaven for many things—first, the Atlantic Ocean; second, that you refrained from war in Mexico; third, that we kept our treaty—the canal tolls victory, I mean. Now, when all this half of the world will suffer the unspeakable brutalization of war, we shall preserve our moral strength, our political power, and our ideals.
Yours faithfully Walter H. Page
God save us!
* There are now, I think, 14 extra men at work, besides the relief-group of as many more.