E.M.H.

Colonel House left that night for Paris, but there the situation was a hopeless one.  France was not thinking of a foreign war; it was engrossed with its domestic troubles.  There had been three French ministries in two weeks; and the trial of Madame Caillaux for the murder of Gaston Calmette, editor of the Paris Figaro, was monopolizing all the nation’s capacity for emotion.  Colonel House saw that it would be a waste of energy to take up his mission at Paris—­there was no government stable enough to make a discussion worth while.  He therefore immediately left for London.

The political situation in Great Britain was almost as confused as that in Paris.  The country was in a state approaching civil war on the question of Home Rule for Ireland; the suffragettes were threatening to dynamite the Houses of Parliament; and the eternal struggle between the Liberal and the Conservative elements was raging with unprecedented virulence.  A European war was far from everybody’s mind.  It was this utter inability to grasp the realities of the European situation which proved the main impediment to Colonel House’s work in England.  He met all the important people—­Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Edward Grey, and others.  With them he discussed his “pact” proposal in great detail.

Naturally, ideas of this sort were listened to sympathetically by statesmen of the stamp of Asquith, Grey, and Lloyd George.  The difficulty, however, was that none of these men apprehended an immediate war.  They saw no necessity of hurrying about the matter.  They had the utmost confidence in Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador in London, and Von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Chancellor.  Both these men were regarded by the Foreign Office as guarantees against a German attack; their continuance in their office was looked upon as an assurance that Germany entertained no immediately aggressive plans.  Though the British statesmen did not say so definitely, the impression was conveyed that the mission on which Colonel House was engaged was an unnecessary one—­a preparation against a danger that did not exist.  Colonel House attempted to persuade Sir Edward Grey to visit the Kiel regatta, which was to take place in a few days, see the Kaiser, and discuss the plan with him.  But the Government feared that such a visit would be very disturbing to France and Russia.  Already Mr. Churchill’s proposal for a “naval holiday” had so wrought up the French that a hurried trip to France by Mr. Asquith had been necessary to quiet them; the consternation that would have been caused in Paris by the presence of Sir Edward Grey at Kiel can only be imagined.  The fact that the British statesmen entertained so little apprehension of a German attack may possibly be a reflection on their judgment; yet Colonel House’s visit has great historical value, for the experience afterward convinced him that Great Britain had had no part in bringing on the European war, and that Germany was solely responsible.  It certainly should have put the Wilson Administration right on this all-important point, when the great storm broke.