The Note-Book of an Attache Part 11

_Friday, November 27th._ Mr. Herrick leaves for America tomorrow.

Today he was busy at his desk in the Emba.s.sy until late in the afternoon, during which time he dictated a personal letter to me thanking me for my services under his administration, a doc.u.ment that will ever be one of my most prized possessions.

Donait's leave of absence has arrived from Was.h.i.+ngton and I am leaving with him tomorrow via Switzerland with special dispatches for Berlin.

I received an indefinite "leave of absence" from the American Ambulance, nominally retaining my position as staff officer in hopes of rendering indirect service to the Corps after my return to America.

_Sat.u.r.day, November 28th._ It is impossible for the French people to understand why the United States should remove Mr. Herrick from his post just when he has so valiantly proved himself equal to the great demands which have been made upon him in the present crisis. In the diplomacy of other countries a plenipotentiary is never replaced in times of great stress, except as a rebuke to him or as an intimation that the policies he has expressed are to be reversed by his government. That a valuable diplomat should at a critical time be replaced for reasons of mere party politics seems incomprehensible to European nations.

_Note._--The French Government sent a representative to America on the same boat with Mr. Herrick. As the s.h.i.+p was approaching land and Mr.

Herrick was again virtually a private citizen within the bounds of his native country, this representative of the French Republic conferred upon him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, the highest order in the gift of France and one usually reserved for her rulers and her victorious marshals. As far as I have been able to ascertain, this is the only time that such an honor has ever been conferred upon an American.

CHAPTER VIII

GERMANY AND BERLIN

_Berne, Sat.u.r.day, November 28th._ Donait and I left Paris at nine last evening for Lyons, Culoz, and Geneva with dispatches for Berlin. For many reasons we are particularly anxious to see Germany and Austria in war time, and look forward keenly to the experience which we face.

We arrived in Geneva at noon. We were very tired, for our train and compartment were overcrowded and we had to sit up all night. The responsibility of the sack of official papers which we carried, and on which one of us had constantly to keep his mind, hand, and eyes, was an additional element of fatigue.

We were forced to wait in Geneva until five o'clock for a train to Berne, where we finally arrived at nine this evening.

_Sunday, November 29th._ This morning Donait and I presented ourselves at the American Legation and delivered our dispatches. It is the custom to send all mail for the American Emba.s.sy in Berlin to the Legation in Berne, where it is opened, checked over, and re-forwarded.

In the afternoon we paid our respects to the Military Attache, Major Lawton.

German newspapers are accessible to us this morning for the first time since July. It is most interesting to view the reverse of the s.h.i.+eld.

_Monday, November 30th._ Berne is almost as much in a state of war as Paris. The whole Swiss army of 500,000 is mobilized and has been on the frontiers since the end of July. The nation is on a war footing and seems to be about equally suspicious of all the nations concerned in the "present unpleasantness." A certain quiet confidence, however, pervades Switzerland, a confidence which even a small nation may feel when it has an effective army. Every normal Swiss citizen is a trained soldier, for in his twentieth year he undergoes from sixty to ninety days of intensive military instruction.

I speak of the efficiency of the Swiss army. I might add that the Germans would undoubtedly have preferred to invade France through Switzerland rather than through Belgium. Their flank would then not have been exposed to the disastrous pressure of the British army and navy. The fact of the matter is that they feared the British and the Belgians combined less than the Swiss. So great are the advantages of reasonable military preparedness.

_Preparedness and military system_ are not synonymous with a large standing army. A small, well-prepared army may be the nucleus around which an efficient military system can be built. The Swiss organization is at present most interesting, for it has saved that country from becoming involved in the present war. Had Belgium been as well prepared as was Switzerland, Germany would have observed sacred treaties and invaded France _across the Franco-German border_.

The efficient Swiss military system, which can put 500,000 trained and organized men into the field, costs less than ten million dollars a year. Our ineffective American standing army of 85,000 men costs us one hundred millions a year, on a peace footing. The difference is due to the fact that the frugal, thrifty Swiss, like most other nations, do not consider civilians competent to meddle with military matters--or that national defense should be subject to the vagaries of party politics--or that an army is a fit subject for the experiments of amateur social scientists.

In spite of the cruel calamities which have in the past overtaken the United States because of her perpetual unpreparedness, we still insist that because we do not believe in war we therefore need no military system. It is as if we held that since we do not wish to be ill we will abolish physicians--or as if we believed that because we do not desire to have our homes burn down we will do away with the fire department and with insurance. No matter how pacific a nation may be it cannot avoid war by signing peace treaties, either singly or by the bushel. Reasonable military preparedness is the _only_ valid insurance against disastrous and ruinous war.

We did without this war insurance in the decade from 1850 to 1860, when we at that time needed insurance only to the amount of 100,000 trained soldiers. This would have cost about seventy-five millions.

Had we possessed this insurance the Civil War would never have been fought. For the lack of it our country missed disintegration by a hair's breadth, and escaped disaster only because we happened to have one of the great men of history as President. The ultimate victory was won at a cost of which the following items were only a part:

750,000 lives.

10,000 million dollars in national debt and pensions.

25,000 million dollars in property damage.

All this would have been prevented by a protective expenditure of 75 millions a year.

No more fatal delusion was ever cherished than the belief that "it takes two to make a quarrel." In world history it has seldom needed two to make a quarrel. Did Belgium quarrel with Germany?

Our legation in Berne has always been the most isolated, humdrum spot on earth. People stationed here nearly died of ennui; nothing ever happened, until all Europe suddenly was plunged into the conflagration of war, and then Berne became, of necessity, the clearing house for the continent for dispatches, mail, telegrams, money, prisoners, and refugees. Every telegram which the American Emba.s.sy in Paris sends to the Emba.s.sies in Germany, Austria, or Italy is directed: "American Legation, Berne. Repeat to Gerard"--or Penfield or Page, as the case may be.

German prisoners in France are numbered in tens of thousands and for a long time the only means of communication from them and to them was by means of the two American Emba.s.sies through the American Legation in Berne. The little three-room Berne Legation with its small staff was simply overwhelmed with work.

Donait and I were sent by Minister Stovall to make a verbal report on the situation of the Germans in France to Baron Romberg, the German Minister to Switzerland. I was much impressed in this my first touch with a German official. He is rather small, slim of body, but keen of mind, with excellent repose and control. Like all German diplomats, he speaks faultless English. A startling evidence of the efficiency of the German Information Bureau was furnished by the fact that he already knew to the minutest details nearly as much about my work in Paris in caring for German subjects as did I myself.

He spoke quite unreservedly about many matters but did not attempt to draw us into indiscretions as do so many foreign diplomats when dealing with younger men.

This evening I walked out along the embankment in front of the Parliament Houses and watched a gorgeous sunset and Alpine glow upon the snow mountains of the Bernese Oberland.

One is not permitted to telephone in English or in any language except German or French (the native languages of Switzerland), and even then the telephone girls listen closely to one's conversation.

Donait and I have made all our preparations to depart for Berlin early tomorrow morning, our dispatches having been sorted out, checked, and re-pouched.

_Tuesday, December 1st._ We reached the Swiss-German frontier at noon today. We descended from the train at Basle and drove three miles to the frontier. Here there were two barriers straight across the road, the nearer one guarded by numerous Swiss soldiers; the farther, some twenty yards behind, by soldiers wearing the spiked helmet. Before we were allowed to pa.s.s the first barrier our papers and luggage were minutely examined by Swiss military and customs officers. We then walked across the twenty yards to the second, or German, barrier, where we were conducted into a little guard-house. Here some dozen soldiers were sleeping or playing cards on cots in the background along the walls. An efficient sergeant examined our papers and then allowed us to pa.s.s the second barrier into Germany, showing marked respect for the Herr Lieutenant and the Herr Attache.

We loaded our suit-cases in a second vehicle, a German one this time, and proceeded some two miles to the railroad station of Leopoldshohe.

While we stood on the station platform at Leopoldshohe, heavy guns in battle could be heard off toward Mulhausen and once there came the typical crash of a big sh.e.l.l exploding much nearer, probably not more than three or four kilometers away. As near as that to a battle in France one sees a disorganized, deserted, wrecked countryside, with wagon trains going back and forth and wounded soldiers straggling toward the safety zone. Here in Germany everything was in the most perfect order, with no excitement or confusion, and pa.s.senger trains left on the minute by schedule time. It was difficult to realize that there was a battle within a thousand miles.

The moment one enters Germany one feels efficiency as if one had pa.s.sed under a spell. The way the feeling immediately impresses itself upon one is a curious psychological phenomenon. One senses at once the wonderful civic consciousness of the nation and respects it. One does not throw waste paper out of a carriage window, nor take trivial short cuts, nor walk on the gra.s.s, nor attempt to pa.s.s through ticket gates before the proper time. Everything is regulated, all is done in order.

I was momentarily embarra.s.sed and self-conscious when first I found myself rubbing shoulders with gentlemen in spiked helmets. During the past four months I had seen them only as prisoners or dead men, and their only greetings had been by way of their sh.e.l.ls and bombs.

After an all-day trip from Leopoldshohe down the Rhine Valley I arrived in Mannheim, where I am to remain over-night, as I have letters which I am instructed to leave with our Consul in this town.

Donait stopped off en route for a day to visit the old family homestead from which his ancestors emigrated to America. I arrived safely in Mannheim about ten o'clock, went to the Park Hotel, which I selected from Baedeker, got an excellent room, and went immediately to bed.

_Mannheim, Wednesday, December 2d._ At half-past seven this morning I was awakened from a sound sleep by a pounding at my door. I climbed sleepily out of bed and, in pajamas, opened the door to two extremely polite and suave Secret Service men who, nevertheless, examined my papers with the greatest thoroughness and as carefully cross-questioned me as to my race, color, and previous condition. They asked to see my dispatches, whose seals they studied in order to be certain that I was really carrying some sort of official messages.

Having listened with close attention to my story, they asked me out of a clear sky where Donait was and why he had left me. They capped the climax by reminding me that at Leopoldshohe I had told the sergeant we were bound for Berlin, which was exactly what I had told him, not having considered the brief stop at Mannheim of sufficient importance to be mentioned. When they had received a satisfactory explanation of the discrepancy (the conversation having staggered along in German, of which my knowledge is limited) they thanked me politely and withdrew.