The last day in Stockholm was spent most happily with Mr. Branting and his gifted wife at their country house two hours’ distance up the straits. Mr. Branting was at this time Prime Minister of Sweden, whose Government was preponderatingly Social Democratic. He and his colleagues in the Cabinet had richly entertained the British delegates to Russia on their way out. This meeting of the great man in his home was of a more precious and intimate character.
The good-natured statesman at home is all that his kindly personality promised it would be. Considerate of the guest who took no wine he had provided specially for her needs. We had lunch in the garden, our table shaded by trees from the hot sun and placed in view of the quiet waters of the channel. Neighbouring houses embedded in foliage peeped at us from leafy bowers. There was no trace of a wind. Bright sunshine filtering through the leaves made a pattern upon the short smooth grass. It was an ideal place for a tired politician seeking to escape for a while from the sordid squabbles and bitter feuds of his profession.
The first time I saw Mr. Branting was at an Allied Socialist Conference in London. His burly form and erect grey hair, standing squarely off a broad forehead, as if seeking to escape from the brush of a pair of fierce, shaggy eyebrows, his large powerful hands and the broad shoulders of a Viking gave him a command over the assembly which a rather weak voice and a slow and deliberate speech might otherwise have diminished. He speaks several languages well, although one who speaks these better, an impish member of the fraternity of the press, whispered to me in Berne that “Mr. Branting confuses the delegates admirably in seven languages!”
On this occasion his wife was dressed in forget-me-not blue, which matched her eyes and set off her fair skin to perfection. Her light, fluffy hair was softly tucked under a large garden hat designed for the sun. She has the strong prejudices mingled with the charm of the French-woman that I am told she is. Mr. Branting is her second husband, and her son has adopted the name of his step-father. She is a writer of books with some claim to serious attention, but I have the misfortune not to have read any of them. She is a delightful hostess, a devoted wife and a very charming woman.
Branting was at this time gravely concerned about the effects of the Peace of Versailles and the Allied policy towards Russia. His Allied predilections during the war entitled his opinions to the gravest consideration, and he expressed himself of the opinion that the conduct of both France and England towards Germany and Russia was conceived in a spirit hostile to true internationalism, and was calculated to produce new wars by reviving old hates. The claim was being made that Russia should pay for the damage due to her withdrawal from the war. Russia retorted by demanding payment for damage done in Russia by counter-revolutionaries paid by England and France. Branting agreed there was logic in the retort. Anti-Bolshevik to the last ounce of him, he none the less regretted a policy which he believed could only have the effect of strengthening the Bolshevik power.
We bade farewell to our good friends at the water’s edge and boarded the steamer for Stockholm and the night journey towards Berlin. The Countess accompanied us, and she and I shared a compartment. The swift Swedish express brought us by morning to the Trellborg-Sassnitz steamer which conveyed us across waters as smooth as a lake to the German side.
We could only spend four days in Berlin. We had therefore carefully to map out a programme so as to accomplish as much as possible. There were the courtesy calls at the British Embassy and the British Military Mission to be made first. At both places the greatest interest was manifested in our trip to Russia. We told the story to Lord Kilmarnock over a pleasant cup of tea at the Embassy, and repeated it to General Malcolm and his staff at the Military Mission during lunch.
But I was extremely anxious, if it could be done in the time, to see representative men and women of every shade of German politics. The Countess was of the greatest possible help in bringing us into touch with one section. The German Foreign Office was equally obliging. British newspaper men gave a hand, with the result that we actually accomplished our desire in this respect, and left Berlin having seen the spokesmen of every party in the Reichstag. We found time to visit the Reichstag in session, and had the experience of hearing the speech of Herr Fehrenbach and seeing the dignified temper of the Assembly under circumstances of extreme trial and provocation.
The Allied representatives in Berlin were seriously concerned at the time with Germany’s alleged defaulting in the matter of disarmament. Our generous Britons, with not an ounce of ignorant hate in them, were not quite sure that Germany was not playing a game of gigantic bluff. It was impossible for me to believe that, after talking with many cultivated and sincere Germans. Fear of Communists on the part of the middle classes as strong as the fear in France of Germany; fear of the Junkers and the middle classes on the part of the Communists (of whom it was alleged there are 500,000 in Germany), was responsible for the charges of concealed guns and hidden rifles freely made by both sides. The Communists had thousands of rifles hidden in the woods, it was wildly said. The Junkers had quantities of ammunition and machine-guns secretly stored for future use against the common people was the counter-charge. It was this fear that put the Englishman Phillips Price on the side of the Allies in their demand for Germany’s complete disarmament. This interesting character has given up his wealth in England, embraced political Communism and married a German workgirl. When I saw him he looked very happy, rejoicing in the birth of a child to him. He, as guileless as many another, believed that France would disarm when the Germans were made helpless. With a truer estimate of the realities Germany refused to be convinced. Hence the passionate plea from her political leaders for more consideration of her difficulties, which had been interpreted by the Allies as a crafty attempt to evade the terms of the Treaty.