ON Wednesday, 5 August, our days of suspense were over. Great Britain had declared war on Germany and Englishmen in Paris were no longer foreigners regarded with suspicion and disfavour. They suddenly found themselves treated as brothers and heroes. There were scenes of great enthusiasm. Cries of "Hurrah pour l'Angleterre---Vivent les Anglais" greeted them in the streets. The French people heaved one of the deepest sighs of relief in recorded time! With the wealth and power of Great Britain on their side they could face any peril.

Hotel Louvois, Paris,    
Wednesday, August.

On the way to the office this morning I bought my Daily Mail and read all the war news. Most of it I already knew. I am entirely won over now as Germany has behaved so monstrously. I first had the news at the Daily Mail office before midnight, where I was until 12.30 this morning. I had no emotion left because I was tired, and also I suppose because we all regarded it as a certainty. I ought to have felt that it was a dramatic moment, but I honestly didn't. I was longing to get to bed. These last days here have been such days of strain that I feel like a wrung sponge. (Letter.)

In the evening I took a bundle of papers up to my room and lay on my bed with several pillows under my head to read undisturbed the news of the last three days. I had been too busy all day to size things up. Now at last I began to understand that one of the great chapters of history was opening: a period which would afterwards rank with the Napoleonic Wars---the fight against militarism and the rule of might. The event that moved me most deeply was John Redmond's speech in the House of Commons on Monday, which I had not had time to read before. The cause of Irish unity was very near my heart. I understood both sections of the Irish people. A new and better era in Anglo-Irish relations seemed to be dawning. Redmond said amid great cheering that if the Government wished to do so they could remove all their troops from Ireland. Ireland's coasts would be defended by her armed sons, Catholics in the south and Protestant Ulstermen in the north. The English papers thus commented on this momentous declaration "Englishmen know what gratitude means, and we venture to say that Mr. Redmond's words will never be forgotten."

The French papers afforded exciting reading. One paper had a flaming headline "The Holy War against Savages," another, "Hurrah for England." "Hurrah for England" certainly summed up the feelings of Paris on 5 August. Rumours as to the help Great Britain would give her ally began to spread. I was told dogmatically that Highland regiments, complete with kilts---les petites jupes---as my French friends called them---and bagpipes had already landed at Calais and had received an ovation from the populace. By the middle of the week Paris was settling down to war conditions. The absence of men between the ages of 18 and 45 was noticeable. The few cabs running charged exorbitant prices. Many shops were still boarded up, to protect them against possible mob violence. On the façade of the Café de la Paix appeared the announcement that the proprietor had been called up for military service. Similar messages were chalked on many windows.

Since Monday Paris had returned to the days of the curfew. By order of the military governor lights were turned out by eight, the cafés were closed and the "Metro" ceased running at that hour. Anyone going home late was challenged by sentries. Three of the largest hotels were turned into Red Cross hospitals. On shops with foreign-sounding names appeared placards stating that the establishment was a "Maison Française."

The shipping offices in the rue Scribe were closed, and 8,000 Americans clamoured to get home. Owing to the difficulty of getting travellers' cheques cashed, 1,500 of their number were without money.

The production of a daily newspaper, even in its attenuated form, was no easy task. As the Paris Daily Mail's private telephone line to London had been taken over by the Government we organised a daily service of special couriers to and from London with the latest news. At first they travelled by way of Amiens, but subsequently traffic was deflected to the roundabout route via Arras, as Amiens was to become an important concentration point for the British Expeditionary Force. Many Union Jacks were now displayed in the streets, and Paris was a city of bunting.

The stranded American tourists were treated as if they belonged to another world. They stood outside the conflict while we British and French were fighting side by side against the menace of barbarism. We were too busy to bother much about the disconsolate Americans, whose chief preoccupation at the moment was besieging the United States Embassy and the overworked American Consular officers in their desire to get home. The folk in America were evidently getting anxious about their relatives. In the papers appeared lists of names of American citizens about whom information was sought.

With the passing of each day women began to take the place of men. Before long they appeared as tram conductors and as ticket collectors on the "Metro." The authorities would evidently not be caught napping. In the unlikely event of a siege, Paris would be prepared. The race courses of Longchamp and Auteuil were turned into grazing grounds for cattle. A reminder that there were still enemies in our midst was the passing through the streets of a thousand German and Austrian civilian prisoners, escorted by troops with fixed bayonets, to be entrained for a concentration camp. The French and British newspaper correspondents were beginning to chafe, and 1 heard of their woes from my friends, Hamilton Fyfe, George Adam and Ward Price. They were told by the French Ministry of War that, as the whole campaign was being carried on in secrecy, they would not be allowed to go anywhere near the front at present

Hotel Louvois, Paris,

Thursday, 6 August. After being at the office, when I was rather tired, I went for half an hour to a cinema to see the pictures of Monsieur Poincaré's visit to Russia.

All day long special one-sheet editions of the French papers are brought out and are sold by boys who rush along the streets. I must have bought about twelve or fifteen to try and get the latest news, though most of them are merely extracts from the morning's edition of the Paris Daily Mail. I may be going over to London to-morrow to give Northcliffe a report of the situation here. (Letter.)

Friday, 7 August.

I only made up my mind finally about going across to London at 4 o'clock and caught the only train out of Paris at 6.44 p.m. We got to Boulogne at a quarter to six: the journey from Paris took eleven hours. I had to change at Amiens and as far as that we were eight or nine in a carriage. Many of my fellow passengers were Belgian soldiers going to the Front. At Amiens there were only seats in a second-class and we were packed like sardines side by side.

Just opposite me in the carriage were a French couple making love. She was attractive and dark and sat on his knee; they went very far I---I suppose they felt that ordinary restraints did not count in war time. Then another Frenchwoman, who was a friend of the one opposite, talked of her husband being at the front; I think she must have been a "lady of easy virtue." Like all of us in the carriage I suppose she was tired and she suddenly placed her head on my shoulder and kept it there for two hours! She tried to get me to embrace her, but she must have found me a rather dull travelling companion. When she saw she had no effect on me she just went to sleep and I couldn't move, as there was a man touching me on the other side. (Letter.)

Travelling in France was very uncomfortable. The train crawled along at fifteen miles an hour. Food was difficult to obtain, and one never knew when one would arrive at one's destination. We passed many troop trains going to the Flanders front. Naturally, the civilian passengers made no complaint. Everything must give way to the military. Officialdom was now in complete control and the passenger was introduced to many irksome, if necessary, restrictions and formalities. Endless hours were spent in dismal and draughty embarkation sheds on both sides of the Channel. There was a never-ending stamping of permits and passports. Visas and vexations were suffered patiently. Laisse-passers and permis de séjour were the order of the day. We were in the clutches of the military machine. For the most part the officials were civil, if peremptory. There was, however, one little khaki-dressed whippersnapper in the British passport control somewhere in France who became notorious. His conception of serving his King and country was to make himself as offensive as he could to all that passed his way. The more philosophic shrugged their shoulders and bore his importunities---C'est la guerre.

From London I heard of scenes at the railway stations similar to those I had been witnessing in Paris:---

London,              
Thursday, 6 August.

I saw Victor(1) off at Waterloo by the 5.50. Things were in a state of great confusion. The station was packed and there were such harrowing scenes on all sides. A train crowded with troops went out while we waited. Women with poor tortured faces, most of them crying in a harrowing way, stood watching it go. One poor woman was beside herself and stretched her arms out after it, crying "Oh, George, George, come back," and so many of them will never come back.

This will be such an opportunity for you to stir up the Overseas members. What splendid messages have come from Australia and New Zealand this morning.

Back in London, I wrote on

Friday, 7 August.

We arrived at Folkestone after 8 and were kept standing on deck to be passed by Government officials for 2-1/2 hours. We ultimately left at a quarter to twelve, and I slept in the train, waking up to see the road to Westerham. We got to London after two ---22 hours from Paris. Before I forget it, the last news of the family was contained in this wire which I got on Sunday, 2 August: "Unable to travel, remaining here Bad Nauheim, all well, Father."(2) I do so hope they are comfortable and not worrying. There are no communications going through to Germany, so I don't think there is anything I can do. (Letter.)

Elmwood, St. Peters, Kent, 
Saturday, 8 August.

I am down here with Northcliffe at Broadstairs, and expect to return to Paris on Monday. I have just been reading one of my books. I love these words, but I wish I could feel that our heads were going to wear sunbeams and our feet touch stars

"Fight well, and thou shalt see
After these wars, thy head wear sunbeams
And thy feet touch stars."

I am to have a talk with Northcliffe this morning and he wants me to return to Paris. I went to the Foreign Office yesterday to get a new passport and then to the Overseas Club office. I lunched at the Marlborough, it was full and there were quite a lot of officers in uniform.

One young man, with his hair brushed back, and looking the typical "young man about town" was sitting next to me, and 1 heard him say that he had been up till 4 a.m. swearing in recruits, and probably he will do splendid work. (Letter.)

Back in Paris. Hotel Louvois,      
Monday, 10 August.

Yesterday morning at Elmwood I saw Northcliffe alone for half an hour at 9 a.m. F. W. Wile, the Daily Mail correspondent at Berlin, who is an American, was there. He said there was a regular frenzy against Great Britain. First of all the people refused to believe that we had come in, as they had been told we would remain neutral. Outside the British Embassy huge mobs had been shouting "Treacherous England"---"Death to the traitors." Northcliffe was very friendly, but wants me to stay in Paris during the war. What I intend doing is to stay here in Paris for the rest of August, which will show him that it is not a question of shirking responsibility, and then telling him quite frankly that I am not prepared to go on staying here indefinitely, and that by the rearrangements in the staff that I have made they will be able to look after things quite well.

He said it will be such an interesting experience, but, of course, I am determined to do my Overseas Club work. I feel no enthusiasm for my work here, none. But in a kind of way I feel it is my duty to him after what he has done, and it really is the hardest thing I could be asked to do. I have arranged for my Overseas correspondence to be forwarded here, and two big bundles have just come, so that will make things easier. I shall be able to feel I am really keeping the threads in my hands.

Northcliffe sent me in his large car to Folkestone. The boat left at 11.30. We got to Boulogne about one. There was a long delay about passports, and the train left just as I was walking to the town station. Wasn't it annoying ? The trains are not being run in connection with the boats. The next train did not leave till 7.15 p.m., so I spent the afternoon with George Curnock, the Daily Mail man here, and with George Adam, the Times Paris Correspondent, who was also at Boulogne.

We lunched at an hotel and then went for an hour's spin by car and we invited rather a pretty American woman, who was stranded here and who is separated from her husband, to join us. She was rushing back to Paris to see the man she cares for before he left for the Front.

We had to change trains at Amiens and arrived at Paris at 5.30 in the morning, a ten-hour journey from Boulogne! There were no cabs, so my two friends---one of them is the Manager of Perrier Water, Willie Todd, who gave me £10 10s. for the O.S. Club a month ago---and I put our things on a dray and were driven along like that. It took us about an hour to get to the hotel. (Letter.)

Stirring things were happening in France. The official accounts of the landing of the British Expeditionary Force were published, and there was good news from the Front. I returned to find a wave of optimism sweeping all before it. Ten days later it had turned to the deepest pessimism. On 10 August the news that Alsace had been occupied by French troops caused great enthusiasm. No other war objective from the French standpoint compared with the regaining of Alsace. The dream of forty years seemed about to be realised. There were long accounts of "how the French entered Alsace." The proclamation by Marshal Joffre was posted up "Children of Alsace ! After forty-four years of sorrowful waiting French soldiers once more tread the ground of your noble country! " At Boulogne the aged Empress Eugénie gave voice to the national feelings "At last, we have waited for it so long!" After all these years of waiting Alsace was to see the red trousers again. Wreaths of flowers were placed at the foot of the Strasbourg monument in the Place de la Concorde.

Despite all that was happening on the various fronts Paris was becoming more normal. There were more horse cabs in the streets. A week after the outbreak of war the children were playing happily in the Champs Elysées. It was difficult to realise that we were at war. Pending the return of the motor buses a service of horse charabancs had been started in some of the main boulevards. Owing to the lack of transport, thousands bicycled to their work. By 12 August people were going about their business as usual, although there was still a note of anxiety evident. The "battle of millions" was said to be beginning, but the war news from the French front was meagre. The work of relaying the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne was being proceeded with, so that, as the Press informed us, "this magnificent avenue will be ready for the triumphant procession, when the invaders have been driven back and the war is over." Voluntary work for supplying the troops with necessities was quickly organised, but I noticed this placard pasted up : "Do not let these rich, well-to-do women make the bandages and bed-jackets, doctor's overalls and sheets, required for medical work. Let them pay poor women to do this, women who need feeding."

However glowing the newspaper accounts of French victories might be, there were always black-dressed crowds of women in the churches praying for the safe return of their husbands and sons. I saw many anxious faces gazing in suppliant adoration before the shrines of Our Lady, and many candles placed with reverent hands before the lighted altars of saints and martyrs.

Paris,                              
Wednesday, 12 August.

At moments I get feelings that I ought to volunteer for active service, but in my calm moments I know that my one duty is to my Overseas work which is going to go through its testing time.(3) I would like to get some organising work in London which would enable me to look after the Overseas Club as well, but owing to the fact that Northcliffe wants me to remain in Paris I feel I must stay here for the time being. I am dining with Hamilton Fyfe(4) and Ward Price to-night, both are special correspondents of the Daily Mail, and I enjoy being with them. There is no question of the Paris Daily Mail moving to Geneva now.

Paris,                          
Thursday, 13 August.

You will see Hamilton Fyfe's and Ward Price's telegrams in the Daily Mail each day. There has been no war news of any importance for two days and we are all waiting. I think the French and ourselves are going to have our work more than cut out and I should not be a bit surprised to see the Germans in Brussels.(5)

Paris,            
14 August.

I am dining with Fyfe and several of the other war correspondents, one of them is just back from Amiens, where he saw a large number of English troops. Sir John French is passing through Paris to-morrow. I am trying to get word through to mother and father via the American Embassies in Berlin and Paris, but I do not know if I shall succeed.

Paris,                         
Saturday, 15 August.

I lunched with Fyfe, Ward Price and two other journalists. Just before lunch I went with Fyfe to the Gare du Nord to see Sir John French and his staff arrive. Sir Francis Bertie, British Ambassador, was there, whom I first met with Lady Warwick five or six years ago. He presented French to the various Ministers, Generals and high officials. French blushed just like a schoolboy. He looked very trim in his khaki and red tabs. There was a round of cheering from the crowd when he appeared. In the afternoon we went for a nine-mile walk right through the Bois. I have just heard from father from Germany via Holland, dated August. They are all well, which is a great relief.

Last night as I was walking home I saw an officer going for a drive in an open horse-cab with the woman he loved. I suppose he was just leaving for the Front. I felt so sad watching them, as I understood what they were feeling. She was feeling the outlines of his face as if to remember them, they kissed in a very real way---poor things.

It is so curious in a moment of crisis like this to be obliged to do work with which one is out of sympathy and yet under it all there is my enthusiasm bottled up, and when I am depressed, and that is often nowadays, I wonder whether I shall ever get an outlet. There is all my Overseas work waiting to be done in London---helping to organise Empire sentiment. I would not mind staying here if there was some real object in my doing so. Of course, all the others on the staff are in the same boat, but then perhaps they have not known what it is to do work one really cares for, like I did during my Empire tour, and that one feels is really worth while. It is such a contrast.

Now to tell you a nice story about one of the staff. Barrow, who is in charge of our Travel Bureau, and is an American and a very nice fellow, was at the hairdresser's being shaved yesterday, when a pretty girl about 22 came in crying and let down her hair, which was long, and asked the barber what he would give for it. The man said times were bad and he couldn't give her more than the equivalent of twenty shillings, so Barrow there and then gave her a sum equal to ten shillings, and told her she mustn't in any circumstances have it cut off. Apparently she wanted the money to buy newspapers containing war news, and then try and make a little money by selling them. I wish I knew what had happened to her. Wasn't it nice of him ? (Letters.)

Like a breath of fresh air came this letter from an old-world garden in England, far from the war area:---

Friday, 14 August.

The weather is lovely these days, hot but with a delicious little wind blowing, and I sit in a chair in a favourite corner in the garden, a square bit enclosed on three sides by old rose-coloured walls and planted in mauve and pink; so lovely. In the middle there is an old sundial with heliotrope climbing up on it, and I am here in peace and quietness with my feet on green grass---I think of you and your rush in Paris. I hear nothing but birds and cooing pigeons and the soothing hum of the mowing machine and move in a world of trees and flowers, and you are hemmed in by rows of houses and breathe exhausted air and hear newspaper boys crying out war news.

Hotel Louvois, Paris,      
Monday, 16 August.

I breakfast downstairs at 9.30 now, as I do my own Overseas work for an hour or two before breakfast ; there were no rolls but dull big loaves. We have to eat the big loaves by military decree as small bread is wasteful. There are no waiters. I am lunching with George Adam, the Times correspondent. Of course, no one has any idea how long the war will last, the Chief thinks a long time. We have been warned not to be surprised if we hear heavy artillery coming from the North-East. (Letter.)

I sometimes wonder if the various newspaper strategists in all countries, who had to write on the war, have ever looked back on their prophecies. One of the best informed journalists in London wrote on 20 August: "Antwerp is one of the strongest fortresses in the world. To carry it by siege would take as long as it did to carry Port Arthur." And again, "All that we can say definitely about the war at the present moment, is that the Allies have hitherto done all they wanted to do." Certainly in Paris in these mid-August days things seemed to be going according to plan. The Press was doing its duty and keeping our spirits up. We accepted without question what we read. We were optimists. This is the fare that was provided for us by the allied papers : "Blow to Germany by land and sea," "German troops defeated by Belgians," "Twenty-five German ships captured," " Germans driven back from Liège with great loss," "Superb Belgian heroism," " Retreat of Germans from Liège," "German losses 25,000," "Allies advancing on Germans," "German Peril in Liège"---though we had never been told how the Germans got to Liège---"German retreat cut off by the French," "Russian invasion of Austria." By 17 August all the news seemed to be good: "The French Striking," "Germans flung back," "French advance in Lorraine," "Seventy miles of successes," "Week's steady advance of French lines," "Berlin hearing the truth," "Dismay in Vienna," "Heavy Austrian defeat." The newspaper-reading public was certainly justified in its optimism, but I was frankly puzzled as to why the German military machine, after its forty years' preparation, was not achieving more spectacular results. I recalled the war book I had read at my private school---in 1895, I think---which had described the invasion of England by Germany's grey-clad hordes, and how they swept down on London's defences and fought a great battle in Surrey. That book had first aroused my interest in the German military machine.

About 21 August there was a change of tone in the French Press. The German occupation of Brussels was announced, and on the following day the French withdrawal in Lorraine was dispatched in a few lines of small type. To raise our drooping spirits came the news of Japan's declaration of war on Germany and a great Russian victory over Austria. Apparently the Russian steam roller was at last getting going. The Russians might be slow starters, but once they began to move there would be no stopping them. Even if things were not going as we had hoped in Flanders, great things were happening in the world. A new era in the treatment of subject peoples was dawning. The news from Ireland was almost unbelievable. I thought of Boer war days in Dublin, and now I read that John Redmond had been as good as his word. He had been repeating in Queen's County what he had said in the House of Commons. North and South, Catholics and Protestants, Cromwellians and Celts, would stand shoulder to shoulder to preserve peace and order in Ireland and defend her shores against a foreign foe. Great Britain would have to treat Ireland as an equal partner in future; there would have to be some form of Anglo-Irish alliance.

Imperial Russia was also learning its lesson. No more crushing of Polish patriots. The Tsar issued a proclamation---although it was signed by the Grand Duke Nicholas, the Russian Commander-in-Chief----promising autonomy and the restoration to Poland of territory annexed by the Powers. "People of Poland, the hour has struck for the realisation of the sacred dream of your ancestors." Comment in the Polish colony in Paris was cautious, but Madame Curie, the co-discoverer of radium, said she thought "the Russian manifesto was the first step towards the unity of Poland and reconciliation with Russia." Paris inspected with interest its first war trophy, the flag of the 132nd Bavarian Infantry, captured at Sainte Blaise, displayed from the first-floor window of the Ministry of War.

Hotel Louvois,          
Wednesday, 19 August.

Last night after dinner I went out to see the moving pictures of the troops, they were quite good. All the theatres are shut, of course, and so is the place where I used to go and listen to gramophone records. It was interesting hearing about the British Army from the Times Correspondent. He was up at the Front yesterday. I am going there by motor to-morrow to see if we can make arrangements for the supply of newspapers to our troops. Things are getting much more normal and flowers for sale are reappearing at the flower stands, although the men flower-sellers have been called up. The sale of absinthe has been forbidden in the cafés. I think I have only tasted it once, and I hated it. (Letter.)

The French War Office, when it had no special news to give out, issued extracts from letters and diaries found on dead German soldiers. The upshot of these letters was that the Germans, who had started in high spirits, were gradually being disillusioned. I saw no German papers at this time. Occasionally I saw a Swiss or an American paper. 1 forget the actual moment when, as a result of reading neutral and subsequently German papers when I returned to London, it began to dawn on me that the war looked entirely different as seen through German or Austrian eyes. I was face to face with a new factor---war propaganda. I have often recalled since this the words of Brandes, the Dane, "War means the assassination of truth." In the twentieth century, an important part of the Government's task is to keep up the spirits of its citizens. In order to do so, it rewrote current events in accordance with high policy. Subsequently I was destined to play an active part in presenting the British case to the Empire overseas and the people of the United States.

During my last week in Paris---I left on 23 August---our spirits were cheered by the announcement that the Germans were in full retreat towards the Rhine. I also heard for the first time the song "It's a long way to Tipperary." There was now a daily trickle of stranded British tourists, British governesses, teachers of languages and others who were returning from Switzerland. The new time-table for the Paris-London passenger service was announced. The train left the Gare St. Lazare daily at 8.0, the steamer left Dieppe at 1.0 and arrived at Folkestone at 5.0, and London was reached at 8.0. The newspapers now began to publish war pictures. We were informed for the first time that special steps were being taken by the authorities to protect art treasures from the danger of bombing from the air. The Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory were placed in safety behind walls of steel.

Hotel Louvois, Paris,                
Friday morning, 21 August.

Yesterday, the 20th, B. and I went in a large closed car to Amiens, which is about a hundred miles by road. The country was looking beautiful, and all the wheat was cut and in stooks. It was such a lovely day with freshness in the air that it made one's blood tingle. B. was a sympathetic person to be with. At Amiens, which is the Base of the British Army, I had to see various officers in connection with the problem of selling the Daily Mail. They were friendly, and anxious for the men to get regular supplies of papers. We also saw numbers of Tommies in the streets, they gave me quite a thrill. (Letter.)

To be British at this time was the key to French hearts. Probably never before nor since has Great Britain been so popular in France. The British Expeditionary Force was just setting out to play that vital part in the great events which led up to the retreat from Mons, the Battles of the Marne and the Aisne. Enthusiastic utterances of Frenchmen were printed each day in the Paris Daily Mail. Readers were cheered by anecdotes such as this "A French officer seized the hand of a British war correspondent and said 'After this we are friends for ever. Oh, it is splendid.'"

My last letter from Paris in August stated:---

Sunday, 23 August.

I was up by four and got down to the Gare du Nord by 5.30. There were terrific crowds, the worst I have ever seen travelling. Americans mostly fleeing from the Continent. The train was packed, and we took turns in sitting on our baggage in the corridor.

We went by Arras quite close to the Belgian frontier, and saw British troops. We got to London at 7.0, which is much quicker than last time.

Monday, 24 August.     Back in London.

It is so marvellous being back at the Overseas Club and doing my own real work.

25 August.

I lunched with Northcliffe. The meeting about the Paris Daily Mail was held and various matters were fixed up and I have now arranged only to go over to Paris once a month. He still does not understand that my heart is not in the newspaper business. Anyhow, he was very pleased with my work in Paris.

26 August

I was with Northciffe again this afternoon, and I think he at last realises that I don't want to go back to Paris and I think it will now be easier for me in that respect.

Thursday, 27 August.

I think I have fixed up about not going to Paris. I saw Northcliffe this afternoon and I think he is going to put Barrow in charge of the Paris Mail largely on my recommendation. I am trying very hard to get Northcliffe to take up a big recruiting scheme. My new secretary, Chaplin, was with me for the first time to-day, which made things much easier.

I fear the British Forces have suffered terribly. I do wish Northcliffe would take up the recruiting scheme.

Friday, 28 August.

I have just been to the Palace music hall with Lady Rodd(6). When we were there the news of the naval victory was read out, and it made me so happy.

I have met several people who say that the Russian troops have landed in the North, and they talk about it very convincingly. Troop trains of Russians with the blinds drawn down have been seen at Grantham station.

London,            
29 August.

I think there is no question that the British Expeditionary Force has suffered terrible losses and it soon maybe a question of enrolling every man available. I would not be a bit surprised to see the Germans get through to Paris.

Monday, 31 August.

I lunched with Rothermere. It is quite definite that I am not going back to Paris now. I cannot get any satisfaction from Northcliffe about the recruiting scheme, so I am going ahead on my own lines with my various Empire schemes and funds for the troops.

Sunday, 6 September.

I went up to Hampstead Heath along that top road where one looks out across to St. Paul's. The sun was shining and the children and dogs were paddling in the pond. Everyone looked happy and I could not believe that there could be such a thing as death. (Letters.)

Even after I left Paris I kept in close touch with conditions there, and until 1916, as a Director of the Paris Daily Mail, I paid frequent visits to Paris for Northcliffe. I always stayed away for as few days as possible because I was then immersed in my overseas war work. During the last week in August the optimism of the middle of the month had entirely gone. Paris was facing the darkest days of the war. Refugees were pouring in from the North. The precincts of the Gare du Nord were crowded with refugee mothers and children from the invaded territories. There were grave fears that Paris would be captured. The French Government moved to Bordeaux, and the Paris Daily Mail followed suit. The Press Bureau published lists of atrocities, vouched for by the Belgian Committee of Inquiry, committed by the German invaders in Belgium. There were rumours, despite the hitherto optimistic statements about the Russian steam-roller, that the Germans had won a great victory on the eastern front.

A few days after I returned to London, Lord Kitchener made a speech in the House of Lords, when he announced the employment of Indian troops in France, "high-souled men of first-rate training, representing an ancient civilisation." On 30 August a returned neutral traveller from Germany wrote:

During my month's enforced residence, I have read repeated reports of revolution in Paris, of the assassination of President Poincaré, of civil strife in England, of return to middle-ages barbarity in Russia, of incredible atrocities by the Belgian civil population. Revolution was said to be rife in London, Paris and St. Petersburg. Enthusiastic Germans---and they were all enthusiastic in those days---said, "We shall be in Paris within three weeks. The war will be over in two months."

Great scenes of enthusiasm were witnessed in Paris, when the British volunteers, enrolled from among the British community in Paris, departed from the Gare St. Lazare. The British correspondent who saw them off wrote:

Maybe these volunteers will never get out to the firing line. They have gone to Rouen for training. The Germans may be broken before they are ready for the field. Many of the corridors in the train were placarded with the words Excursion to Berlin."

On 30 August German airmen were dropping bombs and leaflets on Paris. The Germans announced that the German Army was at the gates of Paris, and that there was nothing left for the city to do but to surrender.

FOR several years my father, who suffered from his heart, and my mother, also an invalid, went regularly in the summer to Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt. My sister had left England on 28 July, 1914, to join our parents.

On the journey I heard the first murmurs of the coming storm---my compartment was full of German and Austrian women, and the German guard who came to clip our tickets at the frontier, seeing one for Vienna, remarked, " They seem to be going mad there." (My sister's account.)

My projected visit to Germany was postponed on Thursday 30 July,(1) and it was not till August that I received word in Paris that my family had to remain at Nauheim for the time being. If they were to be confined in an enemy country they could not have been more fortunately placed. Nauheim largely depended for its prosperity on British, American and Russian kurgäster. The inhabitants would make themselves as pleasant to the stranded British as the circumstances permitted. After making many vain attempts to get news to my parents I finally resorted to sending frequent postcards, written in legible handwriting in German, which 1 sent to a friend of my father's, a General in the Dutch Army. These messages after long delays arrived at their destination.

Nauheim is delightfully situated on the outskirts of the Taunus region---undulating countryside with forests, out of which timid roe-deer occasionally appear. The country was well cultivated by a hard-working peasantry. During the war I used to think of the madhouse world we lived in, which set tillers of the soil from France, Germany, Austria, Russia and Italy at each other's throats. My last pre-war visit to Germany had been in August, 1912. I had many heated arguments with Dr. Schott, my father's physician, and other German friends. Dr. Schott was a Jew but an ardent believer in Germany's right to a larger place in the sun. The average German point of view might thus be summarised:

Is it reasonable that all the best oversea territories in the world should be divided between two or three European nations? Especially when several of the colony-owning nations have passed their zenith. Why should countries like Portugal have rich possessions in Africa? And why should degenerate France---whose efficiency cannot be compared to that of virile Nordic Germany, the future leader of Europe and the world---be allowed to keep her vast colonial possessions, from which she excludes other nations? Great Britain is too sport-loving and her star is on the wane.

In an account written at the time, my sister speaks repeatedly of the nervousness of her German friends during the week-end August 1-4 as to Great Britain's intentions. Despite assurances to the contrary, disquieting rumours were circulating that Great Britain might take the field against the Fatherland. To reassure themselves German friends said "The British will never join hands with those Slav barbarians the Russians. We Germans and British belong to a superior racial order." My sister, in an account of the German reaction to Great Britain's declaration of war, wrote:

As I came down to breakfast on 5 August, I saw a German, long resident in London, turn pale, and heard him exclaim, "Ach, Gott im Himmel! das schlimmste ist geschehen" ("God in Heaven, the worst has happened!") He knew, as every German in his heart knew, though he would not admit it, that their plans, so marvellously and so minutely thought out, had, at the very start, been foiled.

As I re-read the letters and journals written by my mother I have been transported back to the Germany I used to know so well as a boy. I can hear the tramp, tramp of those well-disciplined soldiers marching along the dusty roads during manoeuvres and the rattle of the chains on the horse-drawn gun carriages and field kitchens. When the war broke out I could picture Germany's whole organising genius concentrated in massing millions of men in field grey on her frontiers. I seemed to hear the constant rumble of long troop trains as they crossed the Rhine bridges at Cologne and Coblenz, ever westwards. Would these troop trains never stop coming? There must be an end some time to German man-power.

The following extracts from the diary-letter kept by my mother during August, September and October, 1914, was of course never intended for publication. She started keeping it as a letter to her three sisters, to be posted when opportunity occurred. Having started it she made daily entries. Apart from minor literary corrections I have not altered it; in no case have I changed the sense.

Hotel Prince of Wales,                
Bad Nauheim, Germany,      
Sunday, 2 August, 1914.

My darling Sisters,(2)

You can't realize the war excitement and how it develops hourly. The wildest rumours come in, and unfortunately F.(3) believes them all, and tears about from one person to another, the story growing as each person adds a little fuel to the fire! Numbers of people are rushing off in the wildest way, and probably can't leave after all, as the station and the lines are blocked with the troops going off.

The Austrians went off a week ago, 800 Russians left last week, and the German reservists are now leaving for their Regiments, but among the visitors the panic is incredible. This morning F. came in to say that the Government here had ordered all foreigners to leave, on account of the food supply running short, and we must go at once. I scarcely credited it, and now the Hotel Manager says that he asked officially, and the statement is absolutely false. It would be almost impossible to get away now, and if people do, it is at their own risk ; if the order does come the press of sending the troops will be over, and the Government will provide trains to take us.

Last Friday all the people in the streets kept singing the National Anthem and cheering tremendously, and then singing the Austrian Anthem, which has the same tune as the hymn "Praise the. Lord, ye Heavens adore him." Till about 12 last night they were singing past our windows in rather a disconnected way, which sounded as if they had "drink taken." This does not conduce to good sleeping. That nice young Mr. Ingoldsby Smythe of Barbervilla in Ireland (grandson of the murdered woman) is staying at the Grand Hotel where Mr. George Edwardes the theatrical producer is also staying. Poor Mr. S. had to leave the army about a year ago owing to his heart.

W. has just come in from Church, she was stopped posting a letter to E. and told only an open post card in German, and in German characters, would be allowed through. I hadn't realised that Germany would practically starve if this panic goes on long, but Mrs. Autor (the Manager's wife) explained that they get their vegetables from France and their flour from Russia, already the price of flour is up and when that is finished they will use rice (most of which comes via England). Everyone in Nauheim is full of the tremendous loss to the place the curtailment of the season will mean. I don't know what we shall do but as this can't go now, some day you will get it I suppose.

 

2 August, Sunday Evening, 7 o'clock. If you ever get this, it will be very stale news After constant and varied reports, at last we were authentically told that we must leave to-day or to-morrow, as after that no trains could be guaranteed. So we settled to go at 12 to-morrow, but on meeting Cook's man, he strongly advised F. to leave at six in the morning, so we then decided to follow his advice, but we were told we could not take any luggage except hand things ! So S(4) has been hard at work, stowing away things into our trunks to leave at this hotel. There was not a spot to sit down, when Here Autor knocked to say, "You need not pack as you can't go!" We wired in German to tell E., and the great bother is that we can't write or receive letters or papers!! and the German papers tell so little. I fear it all looks bad. Eleven million Germans are being mobilised, a scale never reached before.

 

Sunday, 2 August, 10.30 p.m. Just as S. was finishing putting back the things in the drawers Cook's man came down to say we could go at 6 in the morning after all and he thought we could get as far as Cologne. So she began again to divide everything, and put the few things we can take in the small hand-bag and hold-all for herself and me, and she is now finishing the trunks, all of which we must leave behind here.

I wonder when we shall see our big baggage again, and what will become of us; it is all very uncomfortable and I dread to think of what the journey will mean. Oh! if only I could run about as I used to do, I would not be such a drag on everybody!(5)

 

Monday, 3 August, 10 am. Well I we were up at 5 had coffee at 6, and got to the station in good time, leaving our luggage and keys with Herr Autor. My bath-chair was on the platform, just opposite where my carriage was to stop, when W. came up and said "We can't go! !" A friend had kindly come to tell us we could not get beyond Cologne, where almost everyone was held up. So we and several others thought it better to be detained in this quiet place than at Cologne, where all would be so crowded, and so back we came!

My poor bath-chair man cried as he was pushing me when I talked of the war. He said "Young people think war is a fine thing, but when you are older, you see things differently, and I must go soon and leave my wife and five children."

We would give a good deal to get letters or even English papers but all are stopped. We feel like Jos Sedley in "Vanity Fair" at Brussels when the battle of Waterloo was fought. Most of the carriage horses and motors are "commandeered," and all food has gone up in price. The news in the Frankfurter Zeitung is very grave this morning and it is nearly certain that France must join in!

 

Tuesday, 4 August. I ended up yesterday's diary when we had just returned from the railway station. Fifteen of the British cure-guests from this Hotel went to the station intending to go but only two men eventually faced it (Mr. Dallin the Egyptian Finance man, and Mr. Talbot, a cousin of the Shrewsburys). The hotel people were not in the least astonished to see us back; it was then not 8 in the morning.

I felt to take our luncheon (which we had already done up for the train) out to the woods would be much more resting than staying indoors in the Hotel, amid the "strife of tongues." So we went. F. had gone off with a party of Americans in a motor (which is commandeered to-day) to Frankfurt to see the British and American Consuls and try and get passports ; they were back at 6. Friedberg (where the Czarina was born), a quiet sleepy village, was bristling with soldiers, and 1,000 horses from the neighbourhood picketed in an enclosure ready to go off.

F.'s party was stopped 8 times by armed soldiers. If the chauffeur did not pull up quick enough, a loaded rifle was pointed at him and everything was searched, even the tool box and the cushions The poor Consuls were nearly driven wild by everyone clamouring for help. Our party got their passports which is a good thing.

If only we could get our letters, we could be happy; but nothing in English is allowed to come through, and we miss our well-informed English papers terribly, the last we saw being Friday's Times (31st). Thank God W. is here and E. had not started.

A Russian doctor at Giessen (about 10 miles off) who lived and practised here for several years, was found putting cholera germs into drinking water, and immediately shot; a Russian in this town found with a bomb yesterday was shot also, so the authorities are determined to act drastically and two Russian spies, disguised as Hospital Nurses here, have been summarily dealt with. There is a Roumanian woman in this Hotel, who has been suspected of spying for some days, and she is to be "politely" escorted away to-day.

From this morning hundreds of motors passed on their way to Headquarters; this town is to be a Hospital Depot for the wounded, and F. and W. went this morning to see Frau von Frankenbergh, the nice wife of the Head Direktor of this place, to ask how we could help, by rolling bandages, etc., it would make us happier to be doing something. They are very short-handed in the Hotel, but are getting in the wives and sisters of the men who have gone.

 

Wednesday, 5 August. We were all very tired after all the mental excitement we have been going through, and got to bed in good time, but this morning all has changed, from an early hour motors were still going. Then came the clatter, clatter of many horses in threes, a man riding one and leading two, and the German National Anthem was sung and played, and there was great cheering as more troops went off. I fancy the troops (on purpose) are made to sing a good deal to keep up their spirits, those who are left behind join in, and forget for the moment their sorrows.

When Sara came in from her breakfast, she said "The Head waiter tells me that England declared war at 7 last evening." The Germans are evidently much upset, and we have been warned not to be out alone and not to go near the station and to be in at 9. No English cheques will be taken in the Hotel, and they are beginning to be careful about food. We wired last evening to Sir Arthur Nicholson and to Sir E. Goschen, in the name of the English and the Americans, asking for a train for all to go together, and signed by F. as a Privy Councillor, and Mr. Yerburgh, who is M.P. for Chester. The fact of England's being involved accounts for the Kaiser's official wire yesterday afternoon, of a promise of protection to all foreigners. The money difficulty is an anxiety, but of course Germany will be glad to get us away as soon as possible, owing to the food difficulty. For some days they would not take English gold.

 

Thursday, 6 August. The Germans all look much subdued. W. and Miss Guinness walked in the afternoon to Friedberg and no difficulties were made. The Italian waiters here are leaving early to-morrow, and the food and service has been reduced. Mr. Yerburgh wired to Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria (who stopped with them for King George's Coronation) to ask for his help. A wire in reply came from him, saying he would do what he could. F. also wired to Prince Henry of Prussia, but no answer so far. It amuses us to see Americans who stated they were British subjects on Tuesday, on Wednesday finding England is unpopular, wearing little American flags!!

The garbled account of England's action in the German papers is painful reading, it is said that England has been longing for war with them for ages, and has now seized upon the Belgian question as a pretext. We so long to know the truth. One good thing this war fever has done already in Germany, is that it has united Socialists and all parties in one bond for the Fatherland. One's heart beats fast at so constantly hearing the tune of "God Save the King" being played.(6)

 

Friday, 7 August. The Italian waiters left yesterday, and two of the housemaids with the head waiter do the upstairs work, and we have our meals at two long tables. As we can't be out on the balcony it is very close and hot and so noisy. We tried to open the windows but they were promptly shut!

The evening paper (German) says Lord Kitchener has been appointed War Minister, but it is almost impossible to get any real news, and the abuse of England and Sir E. Grey is sad reading.

 

Saturday, 8 August. We went to the Police Station in the afternoon to have our passports checked. When we came in we found Prince Henry of Prussia's answer to F's telegram saying merely, "Bedaure nichts zu thun. Krieg ist Krieg, wir haben es nicht gewollt." (Regret nothing to be done. War is War---we did not wish for it.) Prinz Heinrich." Also an official came to search our rooms and persons, he was quite pleasant, and hoped we were not afraid. I felt much more inclined to laugh.

There was cheering all the morning from the station as the troops passed in the trains. The German papers report the capture of Liège.

 

Sunday, 9 August. When we came in about 6.30, to our great delight and amazement, we found The Times, and the Irish Times, and some letters ! ! !! Fortunately we are in this Hotel (Prince of Wales) with such nice people as Herr and Frau Autor, they could not be kinder in every way, and having been so many years in England they speak English well, and though strong for the Fatherland, take a just view of the situation. One of our letters was from E. to F. (typed) also of the 1st Aug., saying that if war broke out Lord Northcliffe wanted him to go to Paris and remain there in control of the Paris Daily Mail. I wonder what he has done, and he so badly needs his holiday.

 

Monday, 10 August. In the afternoon to church, after tea at Müller's, and coming out Mrs. Neeld introduced a nice Englishwoman, who with her party (6) was turned out of Wiesbaden on Friday. They were driving from 10 in the morning till after 12 under guard, with a soldier on the box, and on the road their luggage was taken out and examined. At Friedberg they had a little trouble, but on the whole the officers were quite kind; none of the party could speak German, and they were faint and weak for want of food, only being allowed a cup of coffee and piece of dry bread all day, and not knowing where they were being brought to.

 

Wednesday, 12 August. The same sort of day of hopes and fears and rumours, To the Police Office to see if we could get any letters, but were told there were none, and we should get no more! A Dutch lady told us the news in a Dutch paper she had of the 6th. Of course our tea now is one portion for three and biscuits, as money is getting scarce.

 

Saturday, 15 August. A German official came and W. said she wished she could talk German as fluently as he did English. He quietly remarked, "You will all have to speak it soon." Ingoldsby Smythe joined us at tea and told us that the waiters at the "Grand" said they would be in Paris on the 28th and in London soon after.

The Italian and Dutch papers tell us far more than the German papers, which tell very little and are full of abuse of England! Here they know that England and America make Nauheim, and they keep civil, and 1 suppose hope for people to return next year! But-who can tell what will have happened then?

 

Sunday, 16 August. Mr. Ingoldsby Smythe came up to sit with me and told me his troubles, and how he was watched all last year and has been "shadowed" this year; he was kept two hours and a half at the Police station this morning and questioned, and finally brought back to the "Grand Hotel," being led by the arm by a policeman, though he has left the army for two years and is suffering from his heart.

 

Tuesday, 18 August. F. on the go all day, and W. and Miss Guinness and Mr. Cohen working hard, discovering which English people wish to go, as the idea is to charter a Rhine steamer to take us to Rotterdam. The long strain does tell on one, but strange to say not a single one of the heart people are suffering!!! I have been trembling for F., knowing all this excitement is the worst thing for him! (Can it be that the hearts of all the invalids here are far better than they think they are, or than their doctors tell them they are ?) At luncheon a wire to F. came from the American Ambassador at Berlin, saying Ihre Verwandten wünschen Nachrichten Gerard. (Your relations wish for news.) A letter from the American Consul at Frankfurt came, to say that we shall not be allowed to go by Rhine steamer and we can only leave by train and go to Copenhagen.

There was great excitement about a wire to the Town saying, Belfort has been taken by the Germans but later this proved to be false. A Dutch lady tells us that the Crystal Palace, the Duke of Portland's house (Welbeck), and the Grand Duke Michael's place at Hampstead, have been turned into Hospitals for the wounded. The death of the Pope was only announced in a small corner of the German paper; as war news and abuse of England occupy nearly all the space.

Miss Guinness went to the room in the Bath House where the German women are working for the wounded ; the English women had written to the Frau Burgermeister ten days ago, saying how glad they would be to help, but had never even received an acknowledgment! However, that was probably a little of the spite they feel against England for checkmating their war plans. Herr Autor and his staff are as nice as possible to us.

 

Saturday, 22 August. It became very dark in the morning and I thought we were in for a thunderstorm, but when I spoke of it I was told it was an eclipse of the sun.

 

Sunday, 23 August. Dr. Schott told one of his patients how different it was in other places, and in Frankfurt there was a very bitter feeling against the English. A nice Russian girl, governess to a Russian family of two ladies, came to W. to have her name enrolled, and told her how coming through Frankfurt, they were arrested and imprisoned for hours, only getting some black bread and miserable coffee, searched and never even told why they were arrested ; when they were allowed they came on here. Flags are out all over the town on account of the German victory near Metz, and the children in the streets are playing at soldiers! Poor little things! They have no idea what war really means.

 

Tuesday, 25 August. W. and Miss G. had met Admiral and Mrs. Neeld returning from a quiet walk---he is not at all well. After luncheon Mrs. Neeld came here dreadfully upset to ask for help, as when they got to their Hotel, a policeman was waiting to arrest the Admiral! Fifteen minutes was given them to put up his things, when he was driven to the station for Frankfurt, with a detective beside him and two armed soldiers opposite. Mrs. Neeld had to carry his bag there as the men would not do so. When she asked why he was arrested and how long they would detain him, all they would answer was, "He will be kept till the end of the war" !!

And this to a feeble old retired Admiral, who has been here for years for his heart, and has complications now! I fancy the fact that Lord Fisher(7) is Mrs. Neeld's father is the reason. The American Vice-Consul at Frankfurt was telephoned to and asked to come, which he did after dinner, "a lovely boy," who did his best in telephoning and wiring to the Military Commandant, with the result that about 12 at night we were woken to be told the Admiral had been let out to the American Consulate.

Mr. Smythe was arrested on Sunday! he is supposed to have helped two Englishwomen to escape.

 

Wednesday, 26 August. Yesterday Lady Macdonald of the Isles came to see me in the garden. She knew my pretty nieces, the Brooke girls,(8) at Pau.

We heard that the Admiral was to be back to-day, and after luncheon he and Mrs. Neeld came to report themselves, and thank us. He was put in the common cell, and had to walk up and down many steps to be examined by the Dr., his cell not even having the commonest necessaries! It was absolutely airless and without light. Fortunately he was let out before midnight.

The Town government has told Herr Autor to take down the name "Prince of Wales" from this Hotel and in the town they have effaced any English notices !

A procession of children passed with flags and music, and a figure stuffed with straw, supposed to be a wounded French soldier, women following and cheering and urging them on, it is all very sad. No news of poor Ingoldsby Smythe, we suppose he is in Frankfurt.

 

Thursday, 27 August. Mr. Sterne heard from Frankfurt that we are not to leave till after the war is ended ! ! ! The Americans went off in a special train, straight to the Hague yesterday, the Germans are most anxious to flatter them, and show them how differently they are looked on from the English; the Band was at the station to play for them, and each one was given roses, and a white book, Why Germany went to War. I only hope they won't be hoodwinked and will tell about Admiral Neeld's treatment when they get to England.

All the people in our hotel were moved down to the first floor to reduce the expenses and work.

 

Friday, 28 August. Flow different the Overseas Club's 4th Birthday yesterday was from what I had anticipated. I had imagined a picnic with W. and E. where we had it two years ago and tea at Johannisberg on the golf-links, and dinner at the Kurhaus, instead a wet day, we three prisoners here, and no home news (except through an odd Dutch or Italian paper) and this hatred of the English now.

We saw a number of the wounded (the first who have arrived here) being brought to the Red Cross Hospital in motors, carriages, bath-chairs and stretchers ; one girl in the crowd recognised her lover, badly wounded, on a stretcher ; and a wife recognised her husband; they had been for five days in the train!! The saddest sights I have ever seen. Then in the night about 4 o'clock a train came in with more, to a Hospital just opposite our hotel!

I finished knitting a pair of socks for the German soldiers, other Englishwomen here are knitting cuffs, and dusters. We saw several officers and soldiers walking about with bound-up arms and heads.

 

Sunday, 30 August. We heard that Ingoldsby Smythe has been allowed out from his cell in Frankfurt: it was 14 ft. by 4 ft 6 in. in size, only lighted and aired by a wired-up place, high up, a straw mattress and pillow, and a folding seat chained to the wall being the only furniture. His suitcase was taken from him, so that he had no brush or comb or even toothbrush all the time, and no sanitary arrangements, he was fed twice a day on black bread and almost undrinkable coffee, and for dinner had a kind of porridge made of potatoes and meal. He was alone and without even a book at first, but the last two days he was allowed two books.

When he came back, his first visit (after reporting at the Police Office) was to the barber's to have himself shaved and brushed! But as he told the truth when asked about his treatment, he was visited by the police in the evening and warned!! The news of the British naval victory near Heligoland was cheerful ; also F. got from Hamburg 1,000 marks, so evidently E. had sent this from Coutts.

 

Wednesday, 2 Sept. Poor Mrs. Neeld was brought up to the Police Office, and asked why she had told lies about the Admiral's treatment in the criminal cell. So they evidently are afraid of the truth being known. She was allowed out after being told she would be "severely punished" if she spoke of it again!

Poor Ingoldsby Smythe, to try and pass the time in the cell in Frankfurt, scratched squares on his stool (which was chained to the wall) for a chess-board; then he pricked his fingers, and with his blood stained the alternate squares and with crumbs of bread played draughts !!!

At 12 last night we were woken by shouting, bell ringing and singing and Band playing, which came nearer and at last down our street and past the Hospitals ; how could the poor soldiers sleep? And 32 French wounded prisoners are in the Hospital opposite! We thought the populace might attack the Hotel, but they did nothing, only march about the town, making a great noise. At last about 1.30 they stopped and we got a little sleep. They have gained two small victories, and the telegram coming in about 11 in the middle of their Sedan speeches, excited them.(9)

 

3 September. A wire came in answer to ours to the American Ambassador in Berlin (Mr. Gerard) to say, "No British are to be allowed to leave." It seems rather crushing.

 

4 September. Again woken last night before 1 by a yelling mob. At last the Sister, on night duty, at the Hospital opposite, came out on the balcony, and begged them to be quiet, saying the soldiers had given their blood for their country and needed rest and sleep, so I trust our nights may now be quiet. We heard later that they banged at the doors of the "Langsdorf," and the "Englischer Hof", shouting for the Russians to come out !!!

 

Thursday, 10 September. Mrs. Chilcote reads the Italian paper, which stated that Lord K. had got over a large Russian force from Archangel by sea, and landed them in Belgium. Can it be true

 

Friday, 11 September. No further news in the papers of the Russian troops being in England.

 

Tuesday, 15 September. A letter from Mr. Ives, American Consul at Frankfurt, to say we can leave on the 21st direct to Flushing. Thank God for that, and everyone in great delight, but I fear I just cried, after the long weary strain, I seemed only now to realise what we have been going through and to doubt the certainty of this news.

 

Friday, 18 September. F. went to Koch and Lauter's and came back in great excitement, as they had showed him a letter from Berlin saying "no men, only women and children are to be allowed to leave," so of course I said I wouldn't dream of going, but W. ought to go and tell E. and all the family and the authorities of our life here.

 

Wednesday, 23 September. The poor Russian cure-guests (about 600) were at the station about 4.30 am, and left at 9 for a long journey to the Baltic and then to Finland; anyone who helped them (by order of the Government) even by giving them water on route, to be "severely punished."

 

Thursday, 24 September. A Daily Mail of the 15th (last Tuesday) came through yesterday---everyone has been devouring it! We got it to-day about 11, it is good to see an English paper with true and fair news again. Saw of the death of Percy Wyndham. Poor, poor Lady Grosvenor.

 

Friday, 25 September. W. came and showed me the code she has planned and I gave her home messages. After luncheon we went to the station and saw her off, the party consisted of about 50 English women. Well in spite of the sadness of being left behind, it was something to feel they had gone and could do some good for us at home. There were two carriages full of recruits singing on the train.

The Poles at the Hotel du Nord told us that when the Russian train got to the next station (the day they left here) one man was dead from the crowding !!

 

Tuesday, 29 September. We hope to go (D.V.) on Thursday, when we get an order from the Police! But coming home from the Teich, where we had tea, we met Mr. Smythe, who told us the local authorities had received a special messenger from Berlin to-day, who said that owing to some new war efforts, no one is to be allowed out for a time: so what are we to do?

A number of wounded soldiers came in to-day, Gretchen advised Sara not to let the alte Dame (me) see them, they were so badly disfigured.

 

Friday, 2 October. We finally settled to leave at 12.30, so had an early luncheon. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Meyer(10) kindly came to Frankfurt and saw us off at 2 for Munich. They gave us beautiful roses and fruit and eau de Cologne for the journey, it was sad to see them standing on the platform and to feel they could not also come.

We reached Munich after 10, very tired, but we could not help being amused at the evident determination of the Hotel proprietor and officials to pretend they knew no English, when we began to talk it they replied in German. Soldiers with loaded rifles were at the Munich station.

Saturday, 3 October, Zurich, Switzerland. We arrived at Zurich after we sent a wire to E. and drove to the Hotel Baur au Lac. We got comfortable rooms facing the Lake, which looked lovely and peaceful.

We slept fairly well, and by degrees will be able to feel that at last we are free. I am now lying on the sofa in my room writing, Sara is unpacking, for the first time since the 2nd August when we packed for our flight!

In the train to Munich there were many wounded men, and one quite young officer, who was evidently being brought home by his parents, had his whole face and head bound in white bandages, with holes cut for his eyes and mouth Truly war is a terrible thing.

It is a relief to see the Swiss papers. It was almost impossible not to talk of all we went through at Nauheim with the Yerburghs and Seasons and of those poor people left behind at Nauheim, but I so nearly broke down several times, that Mr. Yerburgh soon found it wiser to talk of other things. I discovered at dinner that Mr. Yerburgh was a friend of Cecil Rhodes from his boyhood. They were at Oxford together, and Cecil Rhodes was godfather to Mr. Y.'s second son. So I was of course keenly interested to hear all he had to tell about him. Cecil Rhodes begged him to go to South Africa with him but Mr. Y. was then at the Bar, got engaged to be married, so he refused.

 

Saturday, 10 October. Heard a rumour in the afternoon that Antwerp had fallen, but I do not believe it, though some of the small forts may have been captured.

 

Monday, 19 October, Lyons. We left for Lyons at 10 in the morning and passed through a mountainous country, and the colouring of the trees wonderfully beautiful.

 

Wednesday, 21 October, Paris. F. and S. prowled about Lyons. They saw 50 guns taken from the Germans and said there was a decaying look about everything, troops going off and many wounded---specially Zouaves.

 

Goring Hotel, London, Friday, 23 October. We left Paris about 8 in the morning, and went through beautiful country to Dieppe. It was dreadful to think how this terrible war is destroying the homesteads and farms so comparatively near ; every place was guarded by soldiers, and in Paris we saw many Zouaves at the station. We reached Dieppe about 1.

 

Goring Hotel, Sunday, 25 October. I should like this diary letter back please, as it tells something of our life at Nauheim. I brought it back inside the lining of my knitting basket to escape detection at the German frontier.

C.M.W.