One of the wards in the American Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly
PARIS WAR DAYS
Saturday, August 1, 1914
This war comes like the traditional "Bolt from the Blue!" I had made arrangements to retire from active journalism and relinquish the duties of Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune, which I had fulfilled for sixteen consecutive years. In reply to a request from Mr. Ogden Reid, I had expressed willingness to remain at my post in Paris until the early autumn, inasmuch as "a quiet summer was expected." Spring was a busy time for newspaper men. There had been the sensational assassination of Gaston Calmette, editor of the Figaro, by Mme. Caillaux, wife of the cabinet minister. Then there was the "caving-in" of the streets of Paris, owing to the effect of storms on the thin surface left by the underground tunnelling for the electric tramways, and for the new metropolitan "tubes." The big prize fight between Jack Johnson and Frank Moran for the heavy-weight championship of the world followed. Next came the trial of Mme. Caillaux and her acquittal. Then followed the newspaper campaign of the brothers, MM. Paul and Guy de Cassagnac, against German newspaper correspondents in Paris. The Cassagnacs demanded that certain German correspondents should quit French territory within twenty-four hours. As several German correspondents were members of the "Association of the Foreign Press," of which I happen to be president, I was able to smooth matters over a little. Although my personal sympathies were strongly with the Cassagnacs, who are editors of L'Autorité, especially in their condemnation of the severity of the German Government in regard to "Hansi," the Alsatian caricaturist and author of Mon Village, I managed with the help of some of my Russian, Italian, English, and Spanish colleagues to avoid needless duels and quarrels between French and German journalists. Finally, the day of the "Grand Prix de Paris" brought the news of the murder at Sarajevo of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. My friend, Mr. Edward Schuler, was despatched by the Associated Press to Vienna, and when he returned, I readily saw, from the state of feeling that he described as existing in Vienna, that war between Austria and Servia was inevitable, and that unless some supreme effort should be made for peace by Emperor William, a general European war must follow.
Wednesday, July 29, the day after Austria's declaration of war against Servia, I lunched at the Hotel Ritz with Mrs. Marshall Field and her nephew, Mr. Spencer Eddy. Mrs. Field was about to leave Paris for Aix-les-Bains. We talked about the probability of Russia being forced to make war with Germany. I warned Mrs. Field of the risk she would run in going to Aix-les-Bains, and in the event of mobilization, of being deprived of her motor-car and of all means of getting away. At that time no one seemed to think that war really would break out. Mrs. Field finally gave up her plan of going to Aix-les-Bains and went to London. The following evening Maître Charles Philippe of the Paris Bar and M. Max-Lyon, a French railroad engineer who had built many of the Turkish and Servian railroads, dined with me. They both felt that nothing could now avert war between France and Germany.
Yesterday (July 31) a sort of war fever permeated the air. A cabinet minister assured me that at whatever capital there was the slightest hope of engaging in negotiations and compromise, at that very point the "mailed fist" diplomacy of the Kaiser William dealt an unexpected blow. There seems no longer any hope for peace, because it is evident that the Military Pretorian Guard, advisers to the German and Austrian emperors, are in the ascendency, and they want war. "Very well, they will have it!" remarked the veteran French statesman, M. Georges Clemençeau.
After dinner last evening I happened to be near the Café du Croissant near the Bourse and in the heart of the newspaper quarter of Paris. Suddenly an excited crowd collected. "Jaurès has been assassinated!" shouted a waiter. The French deputy and anti-war agitator was sitting with his friends at a table near an open window in the café. A young Frenchman named Raoul Villain, son of a clerk of the Civil Court of Rheims, pushed a revolver through the window and shot Jaurès through the head. He died a few moments later. The murder of the socialist leader would in ordinary times have so aroused party hatred that almost civil war would have broken out in Paris. But to-night, under the tremendous patriotic pressure of the German emperor's impending onslaught upon France, the whole nation is united as one man. As M. Arthur Meyer, editor of the Gaulois, remarked: "France is now herself again! Not since a hundred years has the world seen 'France Debout!'"
At four o'clock this afternoon I was standing on the Place de la Bourse when the mobilization notices were posted. Paris seemed electrified. All cabs were immediately taken. I walked to the Place de l'Opéra and Rue de la Paix to note the effect of the mobilization call upon the people. Crowds of young men, with French flags, promenaded the streets, shouting "Vive La France!" Bevies of young sewing-girls, midinettes, collected at the open windows and on the balconies of the Rue de la Paix, cheering, waving their handkerchiefs at the youthful patriots, and throwing down upon them handfuls of flowers and garlands that had decked the fronts of the shops. The crowd was not particularly noisy or boisterous. No cries of "On to Berlin!" or "Down with the Germans!" were heard. The shouts that predominated were simply: "Vive La France!" "Vive l'Armée!" and "Vive l'Angleterre!" One or two British flags were also borne along beside the French tricolor.
I cabled the following message to Mr. Ogden Reid, editor of the New
York Tribune:
Tribune, New York, Private for Mr. Reid. Suggest supreme importance event hostilities of Brussels as center of all war news. Also that Harry Lawson, Daily Telegraph, London, is open any propositions coming from you concerning Tribune sharing war news service with his paper. According best military information be useless expense sending special men to front with French owing absolute rigid censorship.