The months following the outbreak of the war were busy ones for the American Embassy in London.  The Embassies of all the great Powers with which Great Britain was contending were handed over to Page, and the citizens of these countries—­Germany, Austria, Turkey—­who found themselves stranded in England, were practically made his wards.  It is a constant astonishment to his biographer that, during all the labour and distractions of this period, Page should have found time to write long letters describing the disturbing scene.  There are scores of them, all penned in the beautiful copper-plate handwriting that shows no signs of excitement or weariness, but is in itself an evidence of mental poise and of the sure grip which Page had upon the evolving drama.  From the many sent in these autumn and early winter months the following selections are made: 

     To Edward M. House
     September 22nd, 1914.

     MY DEAR HOUSE: 

When the day of settlement comes, the settlement must make sure that the day of militarism is done and can come no more.  If sheer brute force is to rule the world, it will not be worth living in.  If German bureaucratic brute force could conquer Europe, presently it would try to conquer the United States; and we should all go back to the era of war as man’s chief industry and back to the domination of kings by divine right.  It seems to me, therefore, that the Hohenzollern idea must perish—­be utterly strangled in the making of peace.

Just how to do this, it is not yet easy to say.  If the German defeat be emphatic enough and dramatic enough, the question may answer itself—­how’s the best way to be rid of the danger of the recurrence of a military bureaucracy?  But in any event, this thing must be killed forever—­somehow.  I think that a firm insistence on this is the main task that mediation will bring.  The rest will be corollaries of this.

The danger, of course, as all the world is beginning to fear, is that the Kaiser, after a local victory—­especially if he should yet take Paris—­will propose peace, saying that he dreads the very sight of blood—­propose peace in time, as he will hope, to save his throne, his dynasty, his system.  That will be a dangerous day.  The horror of war will have a tendency to make many persons in the countries of the Allies accept it.  All the peace folk in the world will say “Accept it!” But if he and his throne and his dynasty and his system be saved, in twenty-five years the whole job must be done over again.  We are settling down to a routine of double work and to an oppression of gloom.  Dead men, dead men, maimed men, the dull gray dread of what may happen next, the impossibility of changing the subject, the monotony of gloom, the consequent dimness of ideals, the overworking of the emotions and the heavy bondage of thought—­the days go swiftly:  that’s one blessing.

The diplomatic work proper brings fewer