By night London was
"Dark, dark, dark, irrecoverably dark."
But it was not still, nor terrified by the instant danger of Zeppelin raids. Every time a German vulture passed over England dropping bolts of indiscriminate death, it woke the heart of the people to a new impulse, not of fear but of hot indignation.
By day the great city swarmed with eager life. Business was going on at full swing, though not "as usual." Women were driving trucks, carrying packages, running ticket-offices. Men in khaki outnumbered those in civilian dress. Wounded soldiers hobbled cheerfully along the streets. The parks were adorned with hospitals. Mrs. Pankhurst spoke from a soap-box near the Marble Arch; not now for woman-suffrage—"That will come," she said, "but the great thing to-day is to carry on the war to a victory for freedom!"
Oxford—gray city of the golden dream, Learning's fairest and most lovely seat in all the world—Oxford was transformed into a hospital for the wounded, a training-camp for new soldiers, a nursery of noble manhood equipped for the stern duties of war.
Every family that I knew was in grief for a dear one lost on the field of glorious strife. But not one was in mourning. The great sacrifice was bravely accepted as a part of the greater duty.
The friends with whom I talked most—men like Lord Bryce, Sir Sydney Lee, Sir Herbert Warren, Sir Robertson Nicoll, Sir William Osler—were lovers of peace, tried and well-known. All were of one mind in holding that Britain's faith and honor bound her to accept the war when Germany violated Belgium, and that it must be fought through until the Prussian military autocracy which began it was broken.
There were restricted rations in England; but no starvation and no sign of it. There were partisan criticisms and plenty of "grousing." The Britisher is never contented unless he can grumble—especially at his own government. But there was no lack of a real unity of purpose, nor of a solid, cheerful, bull-dog determination to hang on to the enemy until he came down. It is this spirit that has enabled a nation, which was almost ignorant of what military preparedness meant, to put between three and four million troops into the field in defense of justice and liberty.
At the end of January I went to France, eager to see with my own eyes the great things that were doing there and to taste with my own lips the cup of danger. That at least I was bound to do before I could come home and urge my countrymen to face the duty and brave the peril of a part in this war.
Paris was not so dark as London but more tragic. After Belgium and
Servia the heaviest brunt of this dreadful conflict has fallen upon
France. She has suffered most. Yet on the faces of her women I saw no
tears and in the eyes of her men no fear nor regret.