[V]
WHAT ENGLAND THINKS OF AMERICA
The title I have chosen for this chapter is indiscreet, and, as some readers may think, misleading. At least it needs this explanation—that there is no absolute point of view in England about the United States. "England" does not think (a statement not intended to be humorous at the expense of my own people) any more than any nation may be said to think in a single unanimous way about any subject under the sun. England is a collection of individuals and groups of individuals, each with different points of view or shades of view, based upon certain ideals and knowledge, or upon passion, ignorance, elementary common sense, or elementary stupidity, like the United States and every country on earth.
It would convey an utterly false impression to analyze and expound the opinions of one such class, or to give as a general truth a few individual opinions. One can only get at something like the truth by following the drift of current thought, by contrasting national characteristics, and by striking a balance between extremes of thought. It is that which I propose to do in this chapter, frankly, and without fear of giving offense, because to my mind insincerity on a subject like this does more harm than good.
I will not disguise, therefore, at the outset, that after the armistice which followed the Great War huge numbers of people in England became annoyed, bitter, and unfriendly to the United States. The causes of that unkindness of sentiment were to some extent natural and inevitable, owing to the state of mind in England at that time. They had their foundations in the patriotism and emotion of a people who had just emerged from the crudest ordeal which had ever called to their endurance in history. When American soldiers, sailors, politicians, and patriots said, "Well, boys, we won the war!" which, in their enthusiasm for great achievements, they could hardly avoid saying at public banquets or welcomes home, where every word is not measured to the sensibilities of other people or to the exact truth, English folk were hurt. They were not only hurt, but they were angry. Mothers of boys in mean streets, or rural villages, or great mansions, reading these words in newspapers which gave them irritating prominence, said, "So they think that we did nothing in the years before they came to France!" and some mothers thought of the boys who had died in 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, and they hated the thought that Americans should claim the victory which so many English, Scottish, Irish, Canadians, Australians, New-Zealanders, South-Africans, and French had gained most of all by long-suffering, immense sacrifice, and hideous losses.
They did not know, though I for one tried to tell them, that all over the United States American people did not forget, even in their justified enthusiasm for the valor of their own men and the immense power they had prepared to hurl against the enemy, that France and England had borne the brunt of the war in the long years when Germany was at her strongest.
A friend of mine—an English officer—was in a New York hotel on Armistice Night, when emotion and patriotic enthusiasm were high—and hot. A young American mounted a chair, waving the Stars and Stripes. He used the good old phrase: "Well, boys, we won the war! The enemy fell to pieces as soon as the doughboys came along. England and France could not do the trick without us. We taught 'em how to fight and how to win!"
My friend smiled, sat tight, and said nothing. He remembered a million dead in British ranks, untold and unrecorded heroism, the first French victory of the Marne, the years of epic fighting when French and British troops had hurled themselves against the German lines and strained his war-machine. But it was Armistice Night, and in New York, and the "Yanks" had done jolly well, and they had a right to jubilation for their share in victory. Let the boy shout, and good luck to him. But an American rose from his chair and pushed his way toward my friend.