August 28, 1914.
As I sit here, I can see out of my window the Red Cross flag flying over Devonshire House. Only one short month ago I sat at this same window and looked at Devonshire House, glistening with lights, and all its doors wide open, for the duke and duchess were giving an evening party. Powdered footmen stood under the porte-cochère, and the yard was filled with motors; it was all extremely well-ordered and gay.
I watched the people arriving and leaving, for a long time. It was a very late party, and it was not only broad daylight, but brilliant sunshine, before they went home. They did have such a good time, those boys and girls, and they ended by coming out on the balcony and shouting and hurrahing for fully ten minutes. How many of those young men were among the “two thousand casualties” at the Battle of Charleroi, of which we have just got news?
Devonshire House is as busy this afternoon, but it is no longer gay. In the yard is a long wooden shed, with a corrugated iron roof; there are two doors on opposite sides, like barn doors, and black against the light of the farther door I can see men sitting at a table, and boy scouts running upon errands. The yard is filled with motors again, and there is a buzz of coming and going. Yesterday a man brought a sort of double-decked portable stretcher, with a place above and below, and a group stood round it and talked about it for a long time. For this is the headquarters of the Red Cross Society. So, in one short month, has life changed, here in London.
A month ago I toiled up the narrow stairs of a little outhouse behind the Poetry Bookshop, and in an atmosphere of overwhelming sentimentality, listened to Mr. Rupert Brooke whispering his poems. To himself, it seemed, as nobody else could hear him. It was all artificial and precious. One longed to shout, to chuck up one’s hat in the street when one got outside; anything, to show that one was not quite a mummy, yet.
Now, I could weep for those poor, silly people. After all they were happy; the world they lived in was secure. Today this horrible thing has fallen upon them, and not for fifty years, say those who know, can Europe recover herself and continue her development. Was the world too “precious”, did it need these violent realities to keep its vitality alive? History may have something to say about that; we who are here can only see the pity and waste of it.
So little expectation of war was there, so academic the “conversations” between the powers seemed, that on the Friday, preceding the declaration of war, we went down to Dorchester and Bath for a week-end outing. It was rather a shock to find the market-place at Salisbury filled with cannon, and the town echoing with soldiers. The waiter at the inn, however, assured us that it was only manœuvres. But the next day our chauffeur, who had been fraternizing with the soldiers, told us that it was not manœuvres; they had started for manœuvres, but had been turned round, and were now on their way back to their barracks.
As we came back from Bath, on Monday, we were told that gasolene was over five shillings a can. That was practically saying that England had gone to war. But she had not, nor did she, until twelve o’clock that night. When we reached our hotel we found a state bordering on panic. There was no money to be got, and all day long, for two days, people (Americans) had been arriving from the Continent. Without their trunks, naturally. There was no one to handle trunks at the stations in Paris. These refugees were all somewhat hysterical; perhaps they exaggerated when they spoke of disorder in Paris; later arrivals seemed to think so. But we are untried in war—war round the corner. It is a terrifying nightmare which we cannot take for reality. Or could not. For it is now three weeks since the war burst over us, and already we accustom ourselves to the new condition. That is perhaps the most horrible part of it.
But that first night in London I shall never forget. A great crowd of people with flags marched down Piccadilly, shouting: “We want war! We want war!” They sang the Marseillaise, and it sounded savage, abominable. The blood-lust was coming back, which we had hoped was gone forever from civilized races.
But the Londoners are a wonderful people. Or perhaps they have no imagination. London goes on, and goes on just as it did before, as far as I can see. I understand that the American papers, possibly taking their cue from the German papers, say that London is like a military camp, that soldiers swarm in the streets, and that its usual activities are all stopped. It is not true. “Business as usual” has become a sort of motto. And it is as usual,—perhaps a bit too much so. The mass of the people cannot be brought to realize the possibility of an invasion. In vain the papers warn them, they believe the navy to be invincible. And Heaven grant that it is!