Colonel Roosevelt (160 page)

37
Georges Clemenceau’s passionate
Clemenceau,
Discours de guerre
, 17; Strachan,
The First World War
, 46; François Lesure and Roger Nichols, eds.,
Debussy Letters
(Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 292. Debussy, writing to Robert Godet, was looking back to the Franco-Prussian War, which he regarded as a catastrophe for French culture.

38
“suffrage bomb”
The Washington Post
, 15 June 1914.

39
The old church
See above, 604. The British prime minister H. H. Asquith had also been married there.

40
Obscurely basking
Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 307–8.

41
Afterward the Lees
Lee,
A Good Innings
, 1.523ff. Chequers was deeded to the nation in 1921.

42
country palace near Prague
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 305.

43
Wilhelm neither
Ibid.

44
While Roosevelt
Nevins,
Henry White
, 326;
The Washington Post
, 18 June 1914;
The New York Times
, 17 June 1914.

45
Roosevelt more or less
TR’s address, “A Journey in Central Brazil,” is printed in
Geographical Journal
, 45.2 (Feb. 1915), with a magnificent foldout map based on the observations of Lyra and Rondon.

46
The nearest he got
Geographical Journal
, 45.2 (Feb. 1915);
Daily Express
, 17 June 1914.

47
“This is my”
The New York Times
, 18 June 1914. See also TR,
Letters
, 7.779–80.

48
He used virtually
The New York Times
, 18 June 1914; Lee,
A Good Innings
, 1.524. TR was well acquainted with Balfour’s views on this subject, having already devoured abstracts of the former Tory leader’s Gifford Lectures, given at the University of Glasgow the previous winter. (Balfour to TR, 29 Sept. 1915 [AJB].) The lectures were published in 1915 under the title
Theism and Humanism
.

49
He called on
The New York Times
, 16 June 1914.

50
other members of the government
Robert Massie,
Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
(New York, 2003), 166–72. The following supplementary list of other persons seen by TR during his short visit to England is given simply to indicate the breadth of his British acquaintance on the eve of World War I: Lloyd George, chancellor of the exchequer, and Lord Lewis Harcourt, colonial secretary; Sir Edward Carson, Austen Chamberlain, Henry Chaplin, George Cave, and Viscount Walter Hume Long, leaders of the Tory Opposition; Lord Northcliffe, the press baron; Geoffrey Robinson Dawson and J. L. Garvin, editors respectively of
The Times
and
The Observer;
Sir Bertrand Dawson, physician to the King; Fred S. Oliver, the department store magnate; Edward Lyttelton, headmaster of Eton; George Otto Trevelyan, the historian; Sir Leander Starr Jameson, the Boer War raider; and Lord Roberts, the apostle of war preparedness.

51
“Excuse me sir”
Lee,
A Good Innings
, 1.526. Alice Longworth, who had crossed over with her father at the end of May, did not accompany him on his return voyage.

52
Five minutes after
TR,
Letters
, 7.769; TR interviewed by
The New York Times
, 19, 25 June 1914.

53
“When Roosevelt”
Walter Hines Page to WW, 12 July 1914 (WWP).

54
Roosevelt had rejected
See Morris,
Theodore Rex
, chaps. 18 and 19.

55
Roosevelt angrily insisted
Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 140. Abbott was a fellow passenger on the
Imperator
, and witnessed TR’s “thoroughly lively” interview with the Colombian diplomat.

56
“If anybody”
The New York Times
, 26 June 1914. Du Bois had been minister to Colombia during the Taft administration. For a more extended statement of his views, politely but damagingly critical of TR, see ibid., 2 July 1914.

57
The handling of
Ibid.

58
He went on
The New York Times
, 25 June 1914.

59
In doing so
The casualties in the Panamanian Revolution, both victims of Colombian artillery fire, were one donkey and a Chinese immigrant. Morris,
Theodore Rex
, 290.

60
“We have gone”
The New York Times
, 12 May 1914.

61
a run for the U.S. Senate
Pinchot failed to unseat Boies Penrose.

62
“You may expect”
The New York Times
, 28 June 1914; Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 396. For the similar warning of a Harvard doctor who examined TR on the eve of his graduation, see Morris,
The Rise of TR
, 108–9.

63
“Oh! I guess”
The New York Times
, 29 June 1914.

64
“
Es ist nichts
”
Stürmer,
The German Empire
, 100.

65
His assassination
Strachan,
The First World War
, 10.

66
Apparently, Franz Ferdinand
The archduke was warned to stay away by Bosnian authorities, but he did not take their alarmism seriously.

67
After a journey
EKR diary, 30 June 1914 (TRC);
Titusville
(Pa.)
Herald
and
The New York Times
, 1 July 1914;
Greenville
(Pa.)
Evening Record
, 1 July 1914.

68
“It is such”
The New York Times
, 1 July 1914.

69
“thoroughly exhausted”
Lewis,
TR
, 415–16. The
Titusville
(Pa.)
Herald
, 1 July 1914, also noted TR’s husky voice and lack of gestural force.

70
“What on earth”
Lewis,
TR
, 453.

71
Roosevelt was back
The New York Times
, 2 July 1914.

72
“It was not”
EKR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 15 Oct. 1913 (ARC); TR,
Letters
, 7.772.

73
He would still
Lawrence Abbott to his father, 13 May 1914 (ABB). John McGrath, 23, had replaced Frank Harper as TR’s secretary.

74
“If I had been”
TR,
Letters
, 7.768.

75
In Berlin, Wilhelm
Count Szögyéni to Count Berchtold, 5 July 1914, in GHDI: German History in Documents and Images (
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/
).

76
“a serious complication”
Ibid.

77
“The future lies”
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 313.

78
While Washington waited
Oakland Tribune, Ludington
(Mich.)
Daily News, Anaconda
(Mont.)
Standard, Nevada State Journal, Titusville
(Pa.)
Herald, Orange County
(N.Y.)
Times
, and
Brownwood
(Tex.)
Daily Bulletin
, 29–30 June 1914.

1
Epigraph
Robinson,
Collected Poems
, 12.

2
When the
Imperator The New York Times
, 16, 17 July 1914.

3
little Richard
This ill-fated boy was the eighth Richard to be born in eight generations of the Derby family in the United States. TR,
Letters
, 8.1015.

4
So would Ted
EKR diary, 16–31 July 1914 (TRC).

5
That young lady
Belle Willard Roosevelt had just turned 22.

6
the slender graduate
John C. O’Laughlin to wife, 15 Sept. 1914 (OL).

7
A delegation
The New York Times
, 19 July 1914.

8
In New York State
Ibid., 23 July 1914.

9
On the same
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 318.

10
The terms of this ultimatum
On 8 July, the German ambassador in Vienna delivered a virtual command from the Kaiser, stating “most emphatically that Berlin expected the [Dual] Monarchy to act against Serbia, and that Germany would not understand it if … the present opportunity were allowed to go by … without a blow struck.” Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 62.

11
In mid-Atlantic
The New York Times
, 1 Aug. 1914. The Kaiser himself had suggested, as early as 20 July, that German liners in foreign waters be put on war alert. Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 69.

12
he allowed Theodore Roosevelt
See Morris,
Theodore Rex
, 388–91.

13
“Then I must”
Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 87.

14
At 11:10
A.M.
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 320; Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 143; Strachan,
The First World War
, 10; Mark Mitchell and Allan Evans, citing the Austrian imperial archives in
Moriz Rosenthal in Word and Music
(Bloomington, Ind., 2006), 173.

15
Wilhelm II, however
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 322; Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 58.

16
To Edith Wharton
Wharton,
A Backward Glance
, 338, specifically describing the atmosphere in Paris on 31 July 1914.

17
On 29 July
Strachan,
The First World War
, 11.

18
The idea of a world war
The first potential belligerent to invoke it seriously appears to have been the Hungarian prime minister István Tisza, who warned on 8 July that an Austrian attack on Serbia would lead to “intervention by Russia and consequently world war.” Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 61.

19
RUSSIA READY
The Washington Post
, 30 July 1914.

20
“It’s the Slav”
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 326.

21
“An ignoble war”
These exchanges between “Willy” and “Nicky” are taken from Michael S. Neiberg, ed.,
The World War I Reader: Primary and Secondary Sources
(New York, 2007), 46–47.

22
more than one ally
Strictly speaking, Britain was not allied to France under the Triple Entente, as France was to Russia. Strategically, however, neither Britain nor France could stand for German mobilization in the summer of 1914.

23
When Goschen
G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley,
British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914
(London, 1926), vol. 11, doc. 293.

24
The combined vagueness
Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 82. The double assurance of Wilhelm II and Bethmann-Hollweg on 5 July that Germany would stand by Austria in its Serbian quarrel is known to historians as “the blank check” that precipitated World War I.

25
The last forty-eight
Ibid., 118.

26
“those peace people”
Nevins,
Henry White
, 502.

27
“Germany does not”
Moltke to Bethmann-Hollweg, 30 July 1914, in GHDI.

28
Forces for good
TR,
Works
, 14.274–75.

29
the new autocrats
The phrase is that of Martin Gilbert in
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 329.

30
“the French Socialist Republic”
Superscript by the Kaiser on St. Petersburg dispatch, 25 July 1914, GHDI, no. 160.

31
“That is the match”
Wister,
The Pentecost of Calamity
, 10–11. See also Wister,
Roosevelt
, 321.

32
for the first time in history
Gerard,
My Four Years in Germany
, 70.

33
That insult
Since the Reichstag elections of 1912, and especially since the Zabern affair of 1913, when the German crown prince had actually proposed a military
coup d’état
to Bethmann-Hollweg, Prussian conservatives “had come to regard war as a ‘tempering of the nation.’ ” Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 55–56.

34
Ordinary Berliners
The following description of Berlin on the eve of World War I owes much to the vivid account of Modris Ecksteins in
Rites of Spring
, chap. 2. See also Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 121.

35
Holy flame
Author’s translation.

36
“a dance of death”
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 326. There were similar demonstrations of war fever in other German cities, including Munich. Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5.5.