Sat 12th October
Whatever we have done this week has this extraordinary background of hope; a tremendously enlarged version of the feeling I can remember as a child as Christmas approached. the Northcliffe papers do all they can to insist upon the indispensability and delight of war. They magnify our victories to make our mouths water for more; they shout with joy when the Germans sink the Irish mail; but they do also show some signs of apprehension that Wilson's terms may be accepted. L. has just come in from Staines with a paper which says, with obvious gloom, that the rumour is that Germany agrees to evacuation. She is not, of course, they add, to be allowed to make any sort of terms.
Tuesday 15th October
I did not think I should so soon have to describe a meeting with a cabinet minister ... Herbert Fisher's visit... was very obviously due to old family affection. ... Was I nervous or proud, or anything but interested & anxious to pick his brains for news? I don't think I felt a moment's agitation. ... he has lost his lean intellectual look; his hollow cheeks are filled; ... the number of deaths in his house caused this perhaps; but I can't help thinking that London life has rid him of his desire to say clever things to undergraduates all the time.
"We've won the war today" he said at once. " I saw Milner this morning, & he says we shall have peace by Christmas. The Germans have made up their minds they can't fight a retreat...Of course we can't accept their present terms. Why, that would leave them still the greatest military power in Europe. they could begin again in ten years time. But it rests with the French. Lloyd George is going to Paris on Monday; but they are holding out for the evacuation of Alsace Lorraine as a guarantee. We shall probably demand the disarmament of certain regiments too. But we've won the war."
There is now a good prospect of a complete defeat of the German army; Foch says "I have not yet had my battle". Despite the extreme vindictiveness of our press and the French press, Herbert believed that we are going to baulk Foch of his battle, partly because the Germans will accept any terms to avoid it. "Lloyd George has told me again and again that he means to be generous to the Germans. "We want a strong Germany" he says. the Kaiser will probably go.... they've been taught to be brutal. But it hasn't paid. Each one of their crimes has turned out badly. ... it cost us £1,000 to kill a German at the battle of the Somme [1916]; now it costs £3,000. "
... in a little room in Downing Street, where, as he said, the wireless messages are racing in from all over the world, ... where you have to settle off hand questions of enormous difficulty and importance - where the fate of armies does more or less hang upon what two or three elderly gentlemen decide. Herbert thinks there are 2 or 3 geniuses in the cabinet (L. George, Balfour, & possibly Winston Churchill - his definition being that they make everything appear different) & a number of mediocrities.
Friday 18th October
... Wilson's second note came out on Tuesday, in which he used the word 'peradventure'; so far the Germans have not answered. But their Retreat goes on, & last night, beautiful, cloudless, still & moonlit, was to my thinking he first of peace, since one went to bed fairly positive that never again in all our lives need we dread the moonlight. [the irony could break your heart.]
24th October
We took tram to Kingston & there heard the paper boys shouting out about the President's message, which we bought & devoured in the train. The main points are that he is keeping negotiations going, though the Times came out with a great headline "No parley" this morning. He discriminates too, between the German people & the Kaiser; he will consider an armistice with the one but only complete surrender with the other.
...avoiding London, because of the influenza - (we are, by the way, in the midst of a plague unmatched since the Black Death, according to the Times, who seem to tremble lest it may seize upon Lord Northcliffe, & thus precipitate us into peace).
Saturday 9th November
Lord Mayor's day among other things, & one of the two last of war, I suppose. It's just possible that Lottie may bring us news that the armistice is signed within an hour. People buy papers at a great rate; but except for an occasional buzz round a newspaper boy & a number of shop girls provided with the Evening News in the train one feels nothing different in the atmosphere.. the general state perhaps is one of dazed surfeit; here we've had one great relief after another; you hear the paper boys calling out that Turkey has surrendered, or Austria given up, ..
but apparently Katherine Murry had heard someone say "we're giving them everything and getting nothing". Since then it is difficult to see how the most bloodthirsty citizens can squeeze anything more out of Germany.
Monday 11 November
Twenty five minutes ago the guns went off, announcing peace. A siren hooted on the river, They are hooting still. A few people ran to look out of windows. ...so far neither bells nor flags, but the wailing of sirens & intermittent guns.
Tuesday 12 November
...we were both conscious of a restlessness which made it seem natural to be going up to London. Disillusionment began after 10 minutes in the train. A fat slovenly woman in black velvet and feathers with the bad teeth of the poor insisted upon shaking hands with two soldiers ... she was half drunk already, & soon produced a large bottle of beer which she made them drink of; & then she kissed them ...but she and her like possessed London, & alone celebrated peace in their sordid way, staggering up the muddy pavements in the rain, decked with flags themselves, & voluble at sight of other people's flags. The Heavens disapproved and did their utmost to extinguish, but only succeeded in making feathers flop & flags languish. Taxicabs were crowded with whole families, grandmothers and babies, showing off; & yet there was no centre, no form for all this wandering emotion to take. The crowds had nowhere to go, nothing to do; they were in the state of children with too long a holiday. ..there seemed to be no mean between tipsy ribaldry & rather sour disapproval. Besides the discomfort tried every one's temper. it took us from 4 to 6 to get home; standing in queues, every one wet, many shops shut...
Friday 15 November
You can go to London without meeting more than two drunk soldiers; only an occasional crowd blocks the street. In a day or two it will be impossible for a private to threaten to knock out the brains of an officer, as I saw done the other day in Shaftesbury Avenue.
No comments:
Post a Comment