Wednesday, September 2d. The German bomb-dropping aëroplane arrives each day as regularly as sunset. It is considerate of him to come always at the same hour—six o’clock. One knows when to expect him and is thus able to be promptly on hand to watch the show. It was especially thrilling today. We all stood in the Rue Chaillot in front of the Chancellerie, and being on the side of the Trocadéro Hill we enjoyed a good view off over the city. The Taube passed almost directly over our heads on its way to attack the Tour Eiffel; it flew at an altitude of about 5000 feet and looked very like a bug crawling across the sky. With our glasses we could see the German aviator looking down at us, and could distinguish on the under side of each wing the black Maltese cross which all German aëroplanes carry as “uniform.”
Off to the east a French machine was slowly mounting above the housetops to give battle. The German sailed over the Tour Eiffel and dropped a bomb. We caught sight of it, a tiny speck floating downwards. After waiting what seemed an unreasonably long time, we heard the faint, muffled “boom” of its explosion. All this time, guns in various parts of the city were shooting at the aëroplane; it sounded like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. There are anti-aircraft guns on the different platforms of the Tour Eiffel. These seemed to be rapid-fire guns which spouted ten shots in about five seconds, and then, after taking a long breath, spouted another ten shots, and so on. The din was extraordinary, but the German aëroplane went serenely on as if utterly unconscious of the thousands of shots of which it was the target.
After throwing his first bomb near the Tour Eiffel, the German described a graceful, sweeping curve off over the Ecole Militaire, and threw another bomb which struck the roof of a house in the Avenue Bosquet. He then turned northward and sailed off in triumph over Montmartre, apparently unscathed. The French machine had meanwhile reached about half the altitude at which the German was flying. The whole affair was extremely dramatic. All Paris stood open-mouthed in the streets, utterly oblivious to everything but the machine which was creeping across the sky.
The French already take their daily Taube as much as a matter of course as their daily café. They cannot help exclaiming in admiration “quel aplomb!” It is now the fourth day that a German aëroplane has passed over the French armies, eluded the French machines, and braved a murderous fire from the waiting guns of Paris.
The incidents have been marked by singularly ineffective shooting on both sides. The aëroplanes have thrown a dozen bombs; they have broken windows and roof slates and have killed one old woman. But this has been, as far as I know, the only casualty. On the other hand, the Taubes likewise have escaped unwrecked, in spite of the fact that enough ammunition has been expended against them to have smashed all the aëroplanes in the world. The psychological effect on the Parisians has been immense.
For two weeks now, I have been entirely ready to start on my first tour of the detention camps. The need has seemed so pressing that I have been prepared to start immediately on the receipt of permission from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Herrick rightly refuses to allow me to start without this permission. The reason for the delay seems to be that France insists that she will accord us only those privileges with regard to her German prisoners that the German government gives to the Spanish Embassy in Berlin with regard to the French prisoners in Germany. The hitch is that each takes exactly the same ground, so neither side does anything definite.
Such is European “diplomacy.” The onus of the prisoners’ condition cannot be said to rest upon our shoulders. Mr. Herrick or Mr. Bliss has made démarches in the matter almost every day.
Diplomacy is a trade which I find extremely hard to learn. Its principal rule seems to be never to do anything that you can possibly avoid. Such principles naturally give rise to a great deal of futile routine. When a diplomat must act, he methodically follows a well-trodden and known-to-be-safe path; when he is forced to take a new direction he invariably makes some superior take the responsibility. I know that on one occasion a trivial question was asked of a Jäger at the door of a European Chancellerie; it was passed through eight people of increasing rank and finally reached the ruler of a great nation. I wonder if the applicant was kept waiting at the door by the Jäger during the months necessary for the working out of the process.
The Government of France has announced, officially, that it will depart from Paris tonight and that Bordeaux is to be the new capital. In point of fact, many officials have already gone, while those who still remain are to leave tonight on a series of diplomatic trains. The Embassies of England and Russia and the Legation of Belgium will go also. There is a rumor that several of the neutral ambassadors and consuls will flee, but this I cannot credit. They could have no sufficient excuse for deserting Paris so precipitately, and if they did they would appear arrant cowards. Mr. Herrick is sending Captain Pope, one of the military Attachés, and Mr. Sussdorf, the third secretary, to Bordeaux, in order that we may have some official representation with the French Government in its temporary exile, but feels that the Embassy as a whole should stay in Paris. Bordeaux is in the midst of the districts which contain the detention camps for German and Austrian prisoners, and I therefore rather expected to be sent with Captain Pope and Mr. Sussdorf when I heard at noon that they were to leave for Bordeaux. Mr. Frazier, however, told me that I was to stay in Paris, work here being so pressing that the German prisoners will have to get on without me. I hurriedly turned over to Captain Pope much data I had collected concerning the camps and a satchel containing twenty thousand francs in small change which I had in hand for distribution among the internes.