Colonel Roosevelt (156 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
6
Franz Ferdinand jealously
Sondhaus,
Conrad
, 133.
7
French comments had
The New York Times
, 19 Nov. 1913; Koshar,
From Monuments to Traces
, 47.
8
An eruptive bigness
Ecksteins,
Rites of Spring
, 69; Tuchman,
The Proud Tower
, 344; Schorske,
Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
, 345. Tuchman misdates the premiere of Strauss’s
Festliches Präludium
, Op. 61, which marked the opening of the Vienna Konzerthaus on 19 Oct. 1913.
9
“It is only by”
Tuchman,
The Proud Tower
, 344.
10
In last year’s
Ecksteins,
Rites of Spring
, 73.
11
Chancellor ever more
Franz von Papen,
Memoirs
, trans. Brian Connell (London, 1952), 13.
12
“fureur d’hégémonie”
Georges Clemenceau,
Discours de guerre
(1934, 1968), 12.
13
Early in November
Except where otherwise indicated, the following account of the Zabern affair is based on David Schoenbaum,
Zabern 1913: Consensus Politics in Imperial Germany
(London, 1982), and on Sebastian Compagnon, “Novembre 1913: Saverne la tranquille se rebelle,” online study published by the University of Strasbourg at
http://mcsinfo.u-strasbg.fr/
.
14
“Should you kill”
Schoenbaum,
Zabern 1913
, 98. The author has retranslated the words in Schoenbaum’s source, Arnold Heydt,
Der Fall
Z
abern
(Strasbourg, 1934), 7–8.
15
“And me, I’ll”
Zaberner Anzeiger
, 6 Nov. 1913, quoted in Compagnon, “Novembre 1913.” The local report inflated the shooting-range scuffle into an actual sword attack on an Alsatian.
16
“For every one”
Ibid.
17
“
Tête de macchabée!
”
Ibid.
18
“As far as I”
Schoenbaum,
Zabern 1913
, 103.
19
shouts of
“
Bettscheisser
” Ibid., 111–12.
20
The Chancellor, sounding
Transcript of Bethmann-Hollweg’s remarks at World War I Document archive (
http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/
); James W. Gerard (eyewitness),
My Four Years in Germany
(New York, 1917), 67. Gerard, the American ambassador to Germany, gives a personal account of the Zabern affair and its effect on the German people in ibid., 59ff.
21
During the debate
Schoenbaum,
Zabern 1913
, 125.
22
rage and shame
The British peer Lord Milner was in Germany at the time of the Zabern crisis and reported that “the people were so incensed that a revolt against the brutality of the system was with difficulty controlled.” (Robert T. Loreburn,
How the War Came
[New York, 1920], 283.) Meanwhile, Alsatians began to refer to themselves bitterly as
Muss-Pruessen
, compulsory Prussians. Tuchman,
The Proud Tower
, 344.
23
One day, at
Clemenceau,
Discours de guerre
, 18 (trans. author).
Historical Note:
On 5 Jan. 1914, Reuter and Forstner appeared before a military tribunal in Strasbourg on charges of overriding the civil authority in Zabern. They were acquitted after defense lawyers argued that they had been doing their duty in a situation threatening riot. The Crown Prince personally congratulated Reuter and decorated him. Nevertheless, the German and Reichsland parliaments pressed the issue of abuse of military power so forcefully that on 19 Mar., Wilhelm II issued a new regulation that compelled the army to seek civil clearance for acts of social discipline.
In 1916, the “hurricane” that Clemenceau had so long predicted mowed down Günter von Forstner. The lieutenant’s offenses remained largely forgotten until 1931, when Sergeant Willy Höflich published a memoir,
Affaire Zabern
. In retrospect, the incident can be seen as having been doubly divisive, driving a wedge not only between German democratic opinion and royal authority, but between the citizens of Alsace-Lorraine and their temporary overlords (“perhaps the final factor which decided the advocates of the old military system of Germany in favor of a European war”). Gerard,
My Four Years in Germany
, 91.
15:
E
XFEDIÇÀO
C
IENTÍFICA
R
OOSEVELT
-R
ONDON
1
Epigraph
Robinson, C
ollected Poems
, 67.
2
On the first day
TR,
Works
, 6.110.
Chronological Note:
Upon arrival at Barbados on 10 Oct. 1913, TR and his expedition colleagues were joined by Leo Miller. They steamed on south without
visiting Panama, where President Wilson had just triggered, via electric signal, the fall of the last canal dike separating the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. If TR was wistful at not seeing this consummation of what he considered the greatest initiative of his presidency, he gave no sign. Earlier in the year, he had joked about keeping clear of Colombia, to avoid being jailed there for enabling the Panama Revolution of 1903. (James T. Addison to Hermann Hagedorn, 26 Apr. 1921 [AC].) He was happy now simply to be away from all things political. “I think he feels like Christian in
Pilgrim’s Progress
when the bundle fell from his back,” EKR wrote on 15 Oct. 1913 to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, “—in this case it was not made of sins but of the Progressive Party.” She watched her husband laughing at deck sports, “as I have not heard him laugh for years” (TRC). KR was at dockside when the Roosevelts arrived in Bahia, Brazil, on 18 Oct. Three days later in Rio de Janeiro, TR began his official tour of the “ABC nations,” Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. In all three countries, and also in transit through Uruguay, he received elaborate welcomes and hospitality from the governing, intellectual, and social elite. There were numerous formal sightseeing excursions, and he sent regular travel articles home to
The Outlook
. Three compilations of these are printed in TR,
Works
, 4.73–110.
His formal lectures at the universities of Rio and São Paulo (24, 27 Oct.), the Museo Sociale Argentino in Buenos Aires (7, 10, 12 Nov.), and the university in Santiago (22 Nov.) amounted to repetitions of the political and moral points he had been making for the past several years. They were reprinted in
The Outlook
.
After TR’s momentous change of plan in Rio for his Amazon expedition, described in this chapter, and his visit to that city’s Theatro Municipal on 22 Oct. to see the Ballets Russes in
Swan Lake
, his travels were without important incident. He left Cherrie and the rest of his scientific team behind to prepare for the expedition, and continued south with EKR and KR to São Paulo on 26 Oct. The family party proceeded via Montevideo (4 Nov.) to Buenos Aires (5–14 Nov.), before crossing the Andes by rail, via Tucumán and Mendoza to Santiago (21–25 Nov.). EKR sailed home from Valparaiso on 26 Nov. TR and KR recrossed the Andes from Puerto Varas via Lakes Esmeralda and Fria into the plains of northern Patagonia on 29–30 Nov., riding some of the way on horseback and also traveling by steamboat, ox railway, and automobile. On the shore of Nahuel Huapi, one of the world’s remotest bodies of water, TR was accosted by an English peer who said, “You won’t remember me; when I last saw you, you were romping with little Prince [Olaf of Norway] in Buckingham Palace.” (TR,
Works
, 4.100.)
He returned to Buenos Aires on 4 Dec., and left next day for Asunción, Paraguay, whence, on 9 Dec., he sailed up the River Paraguay, heading back into Brazil. For TR’s serialized account of these travels, see
The Outlook
, 24 Jan.–6 June 1914.
3
For a week
Unless otherwise indicated, the narrative, scenic, and atmospheric details in this and the following chapter come from TR’s and Father Zahm’s respective travel books,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
(TR,
Works
, 6) and
Through South America’s Southland
. The chronology is based on two expedition diaries: those of George K. Cherrie, 1913–1914 (AMNH), and Kermit Roosevelt, 1914 (KRP). Other firsthand accounts (cited when used) are those of Cândido M. Rondon,
Lectures Delivered by Colonel Cândido Mariana da Silva Rondon … On the 5th, 7th and 9th of October 1915 at the Phenix Theatre of Rio de Janeiro, on the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition
, trans. R. G. Reidy and Ed. Murray (Rio de Janeiro, 1916; New York, 1969); Esther de Vivieros,
Rondon
conta sua vida
(Rio de Janeiro, 1958), an “as told to” biography largely dictated by Rondon; Leo E. Miller,
In the Wilds of South America
(New York, 1918), chaps. 13–16; George K. Cherrie,
Dark Trails: Adventures of a Naturalist
(New York, 1930), Part Six; and Kermit Roosevelt,
Happy Hunting Grounds
, chap. 1. The fullest account of the expedition, apart from TR’s, is Millard,
The River of Doubt
.
4
Roosevelt stoked himself
TR,
Works
, 6.110; Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 416; TR to ERD, 8 Oct. 1913 (ERDP). Nicholas Roosevelt had noticed in Arizona that “his waist was larger than his chest.”
TR
, 13.
5
He had come north
TR’s social and hunting activities between 12 and 31 Dec. 1913 are fully described in TR,
Works
, 6.47–110. See also Zahm,
Through South America’s Southland
, 419–41; Miller,
In the Wilds
, 214–29; and Rondon,
Lectures
, 16–30.
6
He had already
Zahm,
Through South America’s Southland
, 438. For a detailed account of this hunt, see TR,
Works
, 6.63–92.
7
He had not found
TR,
Works
, 6.77. Cruising up the Paraguay, TR became agitated when he heard some sailors shooting at birds from the bow of the
Riquelme
. “By George, this thing must stop.” And so it did, on his order. Zahm,
Through South America’s Southland
, 424.
8
a tiny man
Rondon was five foot three. Millard,
The River of Doubt
, 73.
9
Roosevelt had met up
Rondon,
Lectures
, 15ff.; TR,
Works
, 6.50. In 1927, José Alves de Lima, a minor diplomat and memorialist, claimed to have “selected” Rondon as TR’s guide long before Müller did. (Alves de Lima, “Reminiscences of Roosevelt in Brazil.”) The boast is implausible. However, TR was certainly aware of Rondon’s existence, and value as a consultant, before arriving in Rio. TR to Lauro Müller, 14 Oct. 1914 (TRC).
10
It had been he
TR,
Works
, 6.xiii–xvi, 10; Rondon,
Lectures
, 10–12. Several alternative expeditions, all plotted by Rondon, were offered to TR, in case he declined to explore the Dúvida.
11
Cândido Rondon was
TR,
Works
, 6.xiv, 73.
12
a mysterious river
Ibid., 6.xiv. Rondon discovered the Dúvida in 1909.
13
Roosevelt would advertise
Ibid., 6.10.
14
Müller could not have
Even before meeting Müller, TR praised him, on the basis of information supplied by Elihu Root, as “one of the men to whom this entire western hemisphere must look up.” Alves de Lima, “Reminiscences of Roosevelt in Brazil.”
15
Müller dreamed of building
Armelle Enders, “Theodore Roosevelt explorateur: Positivisme et mythe de la frontière dans
l’expediçào cíentífica Roosevelt-Rondon
au Mato Grosso et en Amazonie,” Nuevo Mundo Mundo Nuevos (
http://nuevomundo.revues.org/
), 2 Feb. 2005, 3–5. Müller’s dream of an inland capital was realized in 1960 with the building of Brasília. For TR’s two major South American addresses on the Monroe Doctrine, see
The Outlook
, 14, 21 Mar. 1914.
16
“I want to be the first”
Rondon interviewed by Douglas O. Naylor in
The New York Times
, 6 Jan. 1929.
17
“I have already”
Osborn, “Theodore Roosevelt, Naturalist,”
Natural History
, 19.1 (Jan. 1919). See also Osborn to TR, 26 Dec. 1913 (“I shall hear with the greatest relief of your arrival in Manaos”), AMNH.
18
his six colleagues
TR may be seen posing with his colleagues en route to Rio in a contemporary documentary,
Theodore Roosevelt—The River of Doubt
, available online at
http://www.loc.gov/
. The movie, titled with extracts from
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
, includes footage of many of the episodes described in this and the following chapter.
19
Cherrie and Miller, in
TR,
Letters
, 7.754. Their official employer, Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum, was considerably less enthusiastic. Millard,
The River of Doubt
, 60.
20
Roosevelt had told
TR,
Works
, 6.xiv–xv.
21
Kermit, of course
TR,
Letters
, 7.756; KR to Belle Willard, n.d. (KRP); Millard,
The River of Doubt
, 276–77. EKR, worried about her husband’s safety in the jungle, had been instrumental in persuading TR to take KR with him. KR to ERD, Nov. 1913 (ERDP).
22
At daybreak
The following account of TR’s New Year hunt is based on TR,
Works
, 6.110–14.