And another tragedy now roughly interrupted President Wilson's attempts at mediation. Page's letters have disclosed that he possessed almost a clairvoyant faculty of foreseeing approaching events. The letters of the latter part of April and of early May contain many forebodings of tragedy. "Peace? Lord knows when!" he writes to his son Arthur on May 2nd. "The blowing up of a liner with American passengers may be the prelude. I almost expect such a thing." And again on the same date: "If a British liner full of American passengers be blown up, what will Uncle Sam do? That's what's going to happen." "We all have the feeling here," the Ambassador writes on May 6th, "that more and more frightful things are about to happen."
The ink on those words was scarcely dry when a message from Queenstown was handed to the American Ambassador. A German submarine had torpedoed and sunk the Lusitania off the Old head of Kinsale, and one hundred and twenty-four American men, women, and children had been drowned.
FOOTNOTES:
[100] On September 5, 1914, Great Britain, France, and Russia signed the Pact of London, an agreement which bound the three powers of the Entente to make war and peace as a unit. Each power specifically pledged itself not to make a separate peace.
[101] Published in Chapter XI, page 327.
[102] Colonel House's summer home in Massachusetts.
[103] Ambassador from Austria-Hungary to the United States.
[104] This, with certain modifications is Article 10 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.
[105] There is a suggestion of these provisions in Article 8 of the League Covenant.
[106] Article 11 of the League Covenant reflects the influence of this idea.