The day after meeting him at Lord Granville’s I wrote to him asking for an interview. He had already gone off to spend Christmas at Hawarden Castle, a splendid country seat in the extreme west of the island, in the county of Lancashire, near the city of Chester. London society always passes a good part of the winter at its country seats. That is easily understood, as the winter is sad and sombre by the foggy banks of the Thames, while the English countryside is charming even in winter.
What astonished me more was that the Prime Minister of a great country like England could find it possible to live for a part of the year at such a distance from the capital, Hawarden Castle being situated at the other end of Great Britain. One has to cross the entire length of the country between London and Liverpool to get there, and if my memory serves me aright, I think the express train from London takes six hours to reach the little station, which is two miles from the Castle. What would they say in France of a “President du Conseil” who wanted to live so far from Paris? The thing would be thought impossible and so in truth it would be. But in London, on the contrary, everybody finds it natural and things are not carried on any the worse for it. But the English are a practical people, and we are not.
Mr. Gladstone has simply got the telegraph as his auxiliary; it is installed at the Castle and goes direct from his study to his Ministerial Office in London. He can thus be in permanent communication with the whole Department and can transmit his orders at any hour of the day or night.
Mr. Gladstone immediately answered my letter. He wrote that he much regretted having left for the country before having had an opportunity of receiving me, but that he flattered himself by hoping that I would not shrink from a journey in order to give him the pleasure of a visit and that I would accept his hospitality at Hawarden Castle. He did not intend returning to London for some time and we should be quite at our ease at the Castle and could talk together about any matter I liked.
I did not hesitate to accept his invitation, but knowing that in England Christmas is par excellence a family gathering, I did not want to come in as a stranger, and I answered that I would make a point of visiting him two days after Christmas. Mr. Gladstone’s son met me at the station on my arrival, and my room was ready at the Castle.
The next day, after breakfast, the master of the house put himself at my disposition for an interview, and we repaired to his study.
The interview was a long and cordial one, and again confirmed my conviction that the reason why we had been so completely abandoned by our neighbours was that the war had broken out so suddenly that no one had expected it and no Power had had the time to be prepared.
At the risk of being accused of needless repetition, I must again describe what had already struck me in my interviews in Vienna, in London and everywhere—that is, that the Powers were afraid of our conquerors. Nor was this fear without foundation; it arose from the state of impotence into which the suddenness of the war had plunged every Government. The war had surprised them while in absolute repose, and, as it were, asleep.
In all Europe a single Power was on guard and not taken by surprise, for she was waiting for the alarm signal and had long been prepared for it. It was the enemy which the Empire had chosen in a moment of evil fortune and blindness.
When I say that only a single Power foresaw the signal and was prepared, that is true in the literally numerical sense of the word; not even with the exception of the unhappy Empire which had caused such general stupefaction by provoking the war.