“Thank God!”

He then went into the Ambassador’s room and read a secret code message which he had just received from Captain Gaunt, the British naval attache at Washington.  It was as follows: 

“Bernstorff has just been given his passports.  I shall probably get drunk to-night!”

It was in this way that Page first learned that the long tension had passed.

Page well understood that the dismissal of Bernstorff at that time meant war with the Central Empires.  Had this dismissal taken place in 1915, after the sinking of the Lusitania, or in 1916, after the sinking of the Sussex, Page believed that a simple break in relations would in itself have brought the war to an early end.  But by February, 1917, things had gone too far.  For Germany had now decided to stake everything upon the chance of winning a quick victory with the submarine.  Our policy had persuaded the Kaiser’s advisers that America would not intervene; and the likelihood of rapidly starving Great Britain was so great—­indeed the Germans had reduced the situation to a mathematical calculation of success—­that an American declaration of war seemed to Berlin to be a matter of no particular importance.  The American Ambassador in London regarded Bernstorff’s dismissal much more seriously.  It justified the interpretations of events which he had been sending to Mr. Wilson, Colonel House, and others for nearly three years.  If Page had been inclined to take satisfaction in the fulfilment of his own prophecies, Germany’s disregard of her promises and the American declaration of war would have seemed an ample justification of his course as ambassador.

[Illustration:  Walter H. Page, at the time of America’s entry into the war, April, 1917]

[Illustration:  Resolution passed by the two Houses of Parliament, April 18, 1917, on America’s entry into the war]

But Page had little time for such vain communings.  “All that water,” as he now wrote, “has flowed over the dam.”  Occasionally his mind would revert to the dreadful period of “neutrality,” but in the main his activities, mental and physical, were devoted to the future.  A letter addressed to his son Arthur shows how quickly and how sympathetically he was adjusting himself to the new prospect.  His mind was now occupied with ships, food, armies, warfare on submarines, and the approaching resettlement of the world.  How completely he foresaw the part that the United States must play in the actual waging of hostilities, and to what an extent he himself was responsible for the policies that ultimately prevailed, appears in this letter: 

     To Arthur W. Page

     25 March, 1917, London.

     DEAR ARTHUR: