Admiral William Sowden Sims, Commander of
     American Naval Forces operating in European
     waters during the Great War 360

     A silver model of the Mayflower, the farewell gift
     of the Plymouth Council to Mr. Page 361

THE

LIFE AND LETTERS

OF

WALTER H. PAGE

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF

WALTER H. PAGE

CHAPTER XIV

THE “LUSITANIA”—­AND AFTER

I

The news of the Lusitania was received at the American Embassy at four o’clock on the afternoon of May 7, 1915.  At that time preparations were under way for a dinner in honour of Colonel and Mrs. House; the first Lusitania announcement declared that only the ship itself had been destroyed and that all the passengers and members of the crew had been saved; there was, therefore, no good reason for abandoning this dinner.

At about seven o’clock, the Ambassador came home; his manner showed that something extraordinary had taken place; there were no outward signs of emotion, but he was very serious.  The first news, he now informed Mrs. Page, had been a mistake; more than one thousand men, women, and children had lost their lives, and more than one hundred of these were American citizens.  It was too late to postpone the dinner but that affair was one of the most tragic in the social history of London.  The Ambassador was constantly receiving bulletins from his Chancery, and these, as quickly as they were received, he read to his guests.  His voice was quiet and subdued; there were no indications of excitement in his manner or in that of his friends, and hardly of suppressed emotion.  The atmosphere was rather that of dumb stupefaction.  The news seemed to have dulled everyone’s capacity for thought and even for feeling.  If any one spoke, it was in whispers.  Afterward, in the drawing room, this same mental state was the prevailing one; there was little denunciation of Germany and practically no discussion as to the consequences of the crime; everyone’s thought was engrossed by the harrowing and unbelievable facts which the Ambassador was reading from the little yellow slips that were periodically brought in.  An irresistible fascination evidently kept everybody in the room; the guests stayed late, eager for every new item.  When they finally left, one after another, their manner was still abstracted and they said their good-nights in low voices.  There were two reasons for this behaviour.  The first was that the Ambassador and his guests had received the details of the greatest infamy which any supposedly civilized state had perpetrated since the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.  The second was the conviction that the United States would at once declare war on Germany.