Agent of Peace (7 page)

But time had elapsed and I waited a good month at Gunten and Berne in suspense often so weak and ill that I hoped with my body a refusal would come, though my mind and spirit knew it would be ‘Yes’. And one evening, late, the letter come which I knew would settle it. I was still weak and ill and so shrank from the physical effort and strain that must be involved that for full half an hour I let the letter lie unopened. With my weak heart and difficulty of bearing any agitation I first went to bed feeling that only there in complete repose could I face the news. I was a great coward that night. Herr Schubert, (1st Secy) wrote so kindly to tell me the ‘good news’ and there I lay in terror of what might lie before me in Germany physically – afterwards at home morally. I faced the bare fact that I had foreseen and longed for, for a year and nine months and I shrank from it.

The conditions had not come and that meant still further delay. During this period came Mr Grant Duff’s letter, the British Minister, commanding my presence at the Embassy. I knew that answers to the queries he would make would involve disclosure of my plan to which he (with no right) would be averse, and that therefore I must go at once or not at all. Therefore I hurried down to von Romberg and explained the position which he, fully aware of Grant Duff’s idiosyncrasies, wholly understood and my passport (a humanitarian one) was made out and given to me and I was told the conditions were come and that I was to go to Belgium and be handed over to an Official at the border …

1
.    TNA FO 372/894

2
.    Ibid.

3
.    Ibid.

4
.    German records

5
.    Ibid.

6
.    Kaminski p. 304

7
.    EH Journal vol. 1 pp. 10–12

W
e now get to an interesting part of Emily's Journal.
1
The Journal records day-to-day events, but was written later. Although Emily had an excellent memory, she had to leave her notebooks in Switzerland or they would have been confiscated. They are not preserved with her papers:

We were in a hurry because I must leave Berne in four hours to catch the train to Basel and I had to pack and make arrangements for Phoebe [the maid she had with her in Rome]. In the hurry therefore I was never told what ‘conditions' of my visit Belgium were laid down and this might have made a difference in my plans had I known.

I was hastily introduced to young Von Rosenberg the courier who undertook to meet me next morning at Basel with the motor and I was directed to a quiet and unknown temperance Inn, the Blue Cross ‘Blaukreizhaus' which lay in a quiet street. Here, after a wretched supper and a most fatiguing and agitating day I exhausted myself by diligently washing all labels off my bottles and pill-boxes, etc, not an easy task and as it turned out quite unnecessary in my case. I posted a letter in Berne before leaving, to Mr Grant Duff saying I had received his note but was leaving Berne for a trip – nevertheless ‘Immediately on my return I shall have much pleasure in calling at the Embassy'.

[June 7th]
Precisely – with German punctuality – at 7.20 a.m. as advised the Courier drove up to the Inn and found me with equal punctuality standing on the threshold with my bags and baskets. They hoisted them into the car and off we went through the empty streets to the barrier some 4km distant. First there was the Swiss Custom[s] which opened my things very perfunctorily and then the long wooden arm of a level crossing was lifted a little. I slipped under and lo! we were in Germany. In a moment of time one's whole mental orientation was changed. The foolishness of it all was startling. Nature had made no barrier – the earth and stones and grass were the same – one step only made the difference between the country of a friend and of an enemy! No barrier but man, or at least governments, had put up landmarks saying ‘here is all mine, there is all yours. Our interests are different and each must look after his own!' But nature had made no barrier – a long level road swept through a green meadowland on both sides the same and the people actually speaking the same language. As Borngräber [German playwright] says in his
Bergpredigt
: ‘Away with frontiers, down with all landmarks. You on that side, you on this side – you are brothers and the World is your Fatherland.' To me it was a wonderful moment and I felt as in a dream.

Von Rosenberg, a nice youth, took my German phrase book and dictionary which I had begged leave to bring and with no sort of difficulty we passed the German Customs. The car slipped through and another kilometre or so slid by before we gained the little station now the terminus, for German trains no longer run into Basel – the line is cut. A wounded soldier with calm patient face was being carried in a stretcher and let up and down the platform in a baggage lift. I asked the same privilege – a wheeled chair was brought and I was pushed by genial German porters into the lift. Then they bought me a paper and we left for Cologne.

The first thing I saw on opening the paper was the death of Kitchener
*
and the loss of the
Hampshire
. A crowd of memories rushed back upon me and I felt regret that I should not be able to make him learn (what however he knew well enough) that Belgium was not devastated and destroyed as he destroyed South Africa – the Free State and Transvaal. It was in any case a dramatic moment in which to have learnt of his death, and to the German mind I saw it meant a great deal. My opinion was that though no special military loss, Kitchener was a loss to peace-prospects being probably the only man in England who was impervious to public opinion and with shoulders broad enough to bear that hostile opinion if he thought we could gain no military decision and must make peace by negotiation.

(Before leaving Switzerland I left all papers, money and directions with Gertrude Woker of 17 Riedweg, Berne, where also a good deal remains till the war is ended. She came to see me off and to both her family and the Kochers I owe much help and sympathy. I should also like to record Baron von Romberg's thoughtful advice to me – his enemy – to consider well before going, lest afterwards it should compromise me in England. I took council on this point with my Swiss friends who all felt nothing but good would come of it.)

Von Rosenberg left me alone in my compartment – of which I was glad – the train ran very smoothly and did not shake me and I could lie down. The country looked so fair and green and peaceful and prosperous, it was hard to reconcile it with press accounts which have coloured [
sic
] all minds. Officials in spite of my English appearance, and few Anglicized German phrases, were all so genial, helpful and courteous and indeed during the whole of my stay I never encountered one word or look of discordance – distinctly the reverse. Yet I could not be and was not taken for an American.

We stopped at various large stations. Everywhere the people seemed busy and purposeful – cheerful and smiling (though no hilarity) but at the same time serious and calmly confident. There was no look of a beaten people nor of a people likely to be beaten. I wanted to buy the notorious War-bread
**
as a first step towards my study of the Food Question. I think it was at Offenburg that the opportunity came. A barrow at the station came down the line selling sandwiches, wines, mineral waters and such strawberries. I bought a large and substantial sandwich made of this bread and cheese – and some fruit. The sandwich cost half a mark, 6
d
[sixpence]. I usually give 4
d
[fourpence] in normal times in England, for a ham sandwich half the size. To my astonishment I found the bread delicious and from there to the end of my visit I eat it and enjoy it thoroughly. It agreed with me perfectly, far better than the bread of Italy, Switzerland or the Westminster Palace Hotel.

At Wiesbaden we changed trains and had a good half hour so I invited Von Rosenberg to take tea with me. There were men waiters apparently robust and of military age. The tea was fairly good but no milk was provided, instead lemon was served. I asked for biscuits and a packet was brought and Von Rosenberg had spread bread and butter. The packet of biscuits lasted me a long time. The people looked well nourished. Our journey continued down the Rhine Valley that pretty, but I think over-rated scenery and so idealized by Turner. Fruit orchards bordered much of the way and the ripening cherries were being gathered by men and women, but chiefly women, with ladders against the trees. Here and there ex-soldiers (perhaps on leave) were working in the fields and once I saw a squad of men who were evidently prisoners-of-war also at work.

It must have been towards seven o'clock when the towers and spire of Cologne rose above the plain and we drew up in the great station crowded with soldiers, kindly looking solid men, their physique struck me as very superior to that of our slim, ill-grown Tommies
*
. I had a steep flight of steps to climb at the station exit and when at last we got outside there was no conveyance of any sort to take us to the hotel. We had to wait a full half hour and I was thankful to sit down on my campstool. Soldiers, railway men and children stood about the groups. The children looked a bit ragged and unkempt (for Germany), about 15 of them came round me and I distributed chocolate amongst them which I had brought from Berne. I doubt if they were very hungry because oddly enough few of them began at once to eat it as children usually do. I had to teach them to say ‘
Ich danke Ihnen
' for it, while the men standing about smiled genially. It was strange how calmly they took me, considering that young Von Rosenberg was not in uniform.

It was necessary to order a cab from some stables so the delay was considerable before at last we drove off. At the entrance of the old bridge (I think a drawbridge) and guarded, a soldier mounted the box of the cab and we walked the horse across to the farther side where the soldier left us. Cologne is a garrison town and full of military. Opposite the cathedral was a quiet small hotel to which he took me and selected for me a quiet but very comfortable room. Charming, well-mannered and very pretty chambermaids who said ‘gnädige Frau' every other moment.

It was late, though still so light with our first experience of Summer Time, and I went down hungry to supper. I ordered soup and some rice pudding. It was my first experience too of short commons, for the good bowl of soup I expected turned out to be a wee cupful about the size of an after-lunch coffee cup. My inside felt distinctly aggrieved. But then usual three thinnish slices of bread were there and though no pudding appeared there was brought me a very few stewed cherries. So I went to bed while Von Rosenberg went to the town Commandant to explain my presence and assure him I should depart early next day. In Cologne, he said they were very particular, and I fancy they gave him some trouble there about me.

I had a nasty ending to a long strange day. In my bedroom there were double windows but I did not know it. The outer one had cross bars which showed, the inner had none which made it invisible. I went to look out and thrust my head forward precipitately to gain the window with bars which I could see. I came in very violent contact with the inner glass which was invisible. The blow fell on the bridge of my nose and how it escaped being broken I do not know. I was stunned for some time but just roused myself enough to recollect the brandy in my bag and I rubbed that well on the place. But the pain to the whole face and brow was great. I thought of how Mamma did the very same thing and how it brought on the malignant cancer between the bones of her brow and nose and caused an agonizing death.

[June 8th]
Next morning I got down for my coffee at 7 o'clock and found a very excellent coffee and milk ample in supply and the same three large thin slices of bread and some preserve (I think no butter but my notes left in Berne will supply that point accurately). The bill was moderate, the hotel seemed well supplied with male waiters, etc. We walked to the station under the lovely cathedral which I longed to stop and lionize – someday.

Again the station (another one) was thronged with soldiery and I knew they were massing on the Western frontier. Again steps to climb, Continental stations are dreadful in that respect. A comfortable carriage and an easy run of some three hours – past Aachen – Aix-la-Chapelle (burial place of our far off ancestor Charlemagne) brought us to Heberstal, the Belgium frontier.

*
      Emily had many dealings with Lord Kitchener when he was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902. In 1914 he was made Secretary of State for War with Cabinet rank.

**
    Joseph C. Grew, then Secretary at the American Embassy in Berlin, said: ‘We have no white bread any more; it is brown and the flour is mixed with a specific percentage of potatoes, but it is not bad.'

*
      British soldiers

1
.    EH Journal vol. 1 pp. 12–26

G
erman troops had pushed through Belgium en route for France in August 1914. They had a million men in five armies and expected a quick victory. This had not happened. Their advance had been halted near the River Marne 30 miles (50km) from Paris, and after a battle they had been forced to retreat. The British had joined the French and both sides now resorted to trench warfare. Trenches, with underground bunkers, reached across France from Switzerland to the sea. It was there that the armies faced each other for four years.