CHAPTER XXXIII
LAUSANNE PALACE HOTEL—THE HOME OF TURKEY, FRANCE, AND JAPAN—“EVERY POSSIBLE PHASE OF COMPLETE INTERNATIONALISM”
“Please reserve comfortable room for Englishwoman coming from Angora,” so ran the telegram despatched by an American friend of mine, who had gallantly determined that I should be well looked after. It was both comfortable and warm; and, to complete the welcome, my waking eyes next morning are caught by the two flags I have learnt to love so well, the Turkish and the French—the “standards” of two brave peoples, with the fine spirit that nothing can subdue, who would choose rather to be annihilated than to live in servitude.
Then I notice the flag of Japan! “What has Japan to do with it?” I ask Ismet Pasha.
“Ah, Miss d’Angora,” he answers with a laugh, “it is fine sport to watch the poor little bird as they pluck out his feathers and clip his wings.”
Indeed, Lausanne has been “revolutionised” by this Conference of Peace! It is a golden harvest for the hotels, which have not a room unoccupied. Every day luncheons, dinners, and banquets! Everywhere representatives of the world’s Press! I feel strange, somehow, in a “neutral” country. Ever since 1914 I have been living, or travelling, over “seats of war,” in lands fighting to defend, or attack, an Ideal.
One can respect any sort of an “opinion” from some point of view; but “neutrality” and “anonymity” do not sound to me like attributes in which a free and independent people should feel much pride. Yet the “neutrality” of Switzerland means the International Red Cross and the League of Nations; and it has surely earned by its hospitality to the world’s statesmen, a right to play its part in the historical peace, for which “the God who Forgives” is waiting.
The Orient express is bringing the peoples together; Lord Curzon from London, Ismet Pasha from Angora. May their political discussion travel under one company to our home of peace! This Hotel of the Strange Tongues is fast become a very Tower of Babel, for it reveals every possible phase of complete internationalism, from fox-trots and cocktails to the folk-songs of Anatolia, sung by the Pasha’s Guards when off duty. Here, too, are thronging a host of new nationalities—Georgians, Bolsheviks, Syrians, Sons of Palestine, and Armenians; each fired by their own ideals, each proud of their independence; all sighing for the (political) moon.
For the moment, of course, the Conference has resolved itself into a duel between Lord Curzon and Ismet Pasha. Mme. B., indeed, is indignant because, she says, “our English representative has so bullied the French delegate that he has been obliged to take to his bed,” though one can hardly believe that proud and mighty Republic would choose a man whom anyone could really bully to bed!
I tried to imagine the Conferences of the future! “We should appoint a bear for our delegate,” I said, “send him round to all the other delegations in turn, to grunt! When his confrères had all taken to their beds, he could dictate his own term.... After the senile sensitiveness of M. Barrère, the youthful ‘insolence’ of Riza Nour is most refreshing.”