January 13, 1918
About an hour ago I got into Paris from my first trip. I've been where M. and I spent our splendid summer so many years ago, only now the river is spanned with ice and the country is a grey-sage colour. From what I can see the Americans are preparing as if for a war that is going to last for thirty years. America is in the war literally to her last man and her last dollar; when her hour comes to strike, she will be like a second England in the fight.
I made my tour with an officer who was with Hoover three years in Belgium, and who before that was a student in Paris. As a consequence, he speaks French like a native. Every detail of my trip was arranged ahead by telephone and telegram; automobiles were waiting. There is no pretence about the American Army. My rank as lieutenant is, of course, quite inadequate to the task I have undertaken. But the American high officer carries no side or swank. Having produced my credentials, I am seated at the mess beside generals and allowed to ask any questions, however searching. Everyone I have met as yet is hats off to the English and the French—they go out of their way to make comparisons which are in their own disfavour and unjust to themselves. I have been making a particular study of their transport facilities and their artillery training. Both are being carried out on a magnificently thorough scale. I undertake to assert that they will have as fine artillery as can be found on the Western Front by the time they are ready. I certainly never saw such painstaking and methodical training.
As you know, the phase of the war that I am particularly interested in is the closeness of international relations that will result when the war is ended. The tightening of bonds between the French, Americans and English can be daily witnessed and felt. The Americans are loud in their praise of their French and British instructors—the instructors are equally proud of their pupils. On the street, in hotels and trains, the three races hobnob together.
I came back to-day with a French artillery and cavalry officer—splendid fellows. We had fought together on the Somme, we discovered, and had occupied the same Front, though at separate times, at Vimy. The artilleryman was a young French noble, and, as only noblemen can these days, had a car waiting for him at the station He insisted on taking me to my hotel, and we parted the most excellent friends.
I have two days in which to write up my experiences, and on Tuesday I shall set out on a tour in a new direction. So much I am able to tell you; the rest will be in my book when it is published.
This time last year we were together in London—how long ago it seems and sounds! Years are longer and of more value than they once were. This year I'm here. Next year where? This time next year the war will not be ended, I'm certain, nor even the year after that, perhaps. The more we feel our strength, the more we are called upon to suffer, the sterner will become our terms.
It's nearly eleven, my dear ones, and time that I was asleep. I have Henri Bordeaux's story of The Last Days of Fort Vaux beside me—it's most heroic reading. What shall we do when the gates of heroism grow narrow and peace has been declared? Something spiritual will have gone out of life when the challenge of the horrible is ended.
XXVII
Paris