Part 2 — CHAPTER X (continued 2)

“I asked George whether in the late crisis about Agadir troops would have been landed in France, and he said that orders had been given for an expedition, though it was no longer possible to send more than 80,000 men instead of 160,000. These would have been placed under the nominal command of General French, though the man they really relied on at the War Office was another General (I forget his name) in whom George himself has full confidence. He says that when the Emperor William was here for the Queen’s Memorial, he, Wilhelm, expostulated with King George for interfering between Germany and France, and used the words ‘We wish to be friends with England, but if you force us, beware. Remember that Germany’s sword is sharp.’

“We three shot Buzland’s and Sheppard’s beats, and got nineteen wild pheasants, with 166 rabbits. George and all of us shot extremely well, notwithstanding our overnight discussions, the day hot as summer.

“15th Oct. (Sunday).—George went away early to London, being busy with his leadership of the ‘Die Hards’ and the Constitution of the new Halsbury Club. Mark and I have talked over George’s political prospects which we agree might yet be retrieved in his party if he could only be less self-indulgent. He is the imaginative brain of them all, having engineered the whole revolt against Balfour, and might have the Leadership if he would amuse himself less. As it is, he is likely to have to play second to dull men like Austen Chamberlain, and whipper-snappers like F. E. Smith. We have both spoken seriously to George about it, and I lectured Mark about his own imperialistic doctrines, arguing that after all honesty would be the best policy in foreign politics if they would only believe it. He is to spend a week at Glen with Grey, and I am anxious he should represent a more respectable view of Egyptian and other Eastern questions in the talks they are sure to have together. The Glen influence is a bad one for Grey. I asked Mark what his opinion of Grey was. He said he had seen much of him formerly on political platforms, and that he used to be a stupid fellow and a dull speaker, but had ‘greatly improved,’ he was ignorant and a second-rate man, though personally charming and most distinguished.

“16th Oct.—The most important news of the last few days has been the revolution in China. It seems to be much on the lines of the Tai Ping rebellion which Gordon suppressed fifty years ago, a rising of the true Chinese against their Manchu rulers, only the present movement is led by a highly civilized and Europeanized young man, the same who was not long ago arrested and held captive at the Chinese Embassy in London and liberated in deference to English protests. The revolt has already affected a third of the Empire, with all the Central part, including Hankau.

“17th Oct.—Worth Forest. Terence was here this afternoon. Talking of Tripoli he tells me that there is little prospect of any determined opposition being made to the Italians by the native Tripolitans. The Turks were so unpopular that they would have welcomed strangers against these only they would rather it had been any other than the Italians. Fanaticism, he says, is dead in North Africa, it being recognized that resistance to Christendom is useless. The Senussia may show some fight in the desert but not the people of Fezzan, who are traders and care little for anything except money. The Italians are less liked than any other of the Europeans. Terence is more likely to know about these things than any Englishman I know, and he is probably right. If so the case is a very hopeless one. Terence does not believe in the rumoured intention of our Government annexing Egypt. Annexation is not in the English programme, as it is found much more advantageous to govern Mohammedan lands indirectly through a Moslem prince. It is not any scruple of morality that prevents annexation, only a calculation of interest. My book, ‘Gordon at Khartoum,’ is being well reviewed.

“19th Oct.—There is a scare at Berlin and Vienna that Egypt was to be annexed, but it is denied officially here and seems really to have had no foundation. I had a letter from Winston yesterday saying that he wanted to come here for a night and have a talk. He says in it, ‘I am glad to find that my belonging to a Government wicked enough to send Lord Kitchener to Egypt has not altered our relations.’

“People in Egypt are subscribing to the war in Tripoli, and the Indian Mohammedans have taken it up.

“23rd Oct.—Ryan came, and with him Malony, fresh from Persia. Malony is engaged to marry a daughter of Sir Francis Elliot, our Minister at Athens. About Persia he is very hopeless, not on account of the Persians themselves, but because of Grey, who has sold them to Russia. The Russian Government is determined they shall not recover financially or politically, and Barclay, our English Minister at Teheran, is instructed by the Foreign Office to play into their hands, though he personally would help them. The British Government is reinforcing the Legation guard at Teheran with 200 troops from India, which will be a new pretext with the Russians for increasing their garrisons. Malony has been seeing much of my old friend the Bakhtiari Chief, Ali Kuli Khan, now holding the title of Sardar Assad, who Malony says often talks of me, and is a man of great ability. [He travelled with us for three weeks from Haïl to Bagdad in 1879. See ‘A Pilgrimage to Nejd.’]

“25th Oct.—Cabinet changes are announced. Winston goes to the Admiralty, which will be an advantage to him as helping him out of infinite hot water he is in at the Home Office. I am writing to congratulate him, and have expressed a hope that if he bombards a town it will be Naples or Messina, rather than Constantinople or Jeddah. The Turks and Arabs have been fighting the Italians well at Benghazi, and at Tripoli the Turkish army has followed the same programme as Arabi’s did at Alexandria. It has retired out of reach of the ships’ guns, and is harassing the Italians on shore. At Constantinople the Parliament has met, and is for continuing the war. The Italians have committed atrocities in the way of drumhead court martials just as Beresford did in 1882.

“27th Oct.—Winston answers me from the Admiralty through Eddy Marsh, his private secretary. ‘Winston wishes me to thank you and to say that he is very busy settling down here, but hopes to come and see you as soon as he can. Your wishes as to bombardments have been noted in the Department, and every care will be taken to prevent mistakes.’ I fear Winston is still on the best of terms with Grey, as I see in the papers that Grey stood godfather with F. E. Smith to Winston’s son and heir, the new Randolph, yesterday.

“31st Oct.—The atrocities committed by the Italians at Tripoli have passed all that have ever been heard of for a century. On the pretext that the Arab inhabitants of the palm groves behind the town joined the Turkish army in its attack on the Italian troops, the whole of the native population, men, women, and children have been exterminated, to the number, it is reported, of 4,000 persons. This is absolutely against the laws of war, and puts the Italians in a position of piracy which Europe will hardly tolerate. They seem to have been pretty soundly beaten in the fighting and have been obliged to retire inside the town. The Italians are a cowardly people, utterly vicious and corrupt, and this cruelty is a part of their nature. It will deprive them of any right to pose as the champions of civilization in this war or of Christianity, while it will unite all the Moslem world against them and against England and France, who are supporting them. I ought to say, perhaps, the English and French Governments, for public opinion both here and in Paris condemns them. The Catholic bishops in Italy have declared themselves in favour of the war as a crusade, and it is said the Pope supports it, though Patrick Butler, who is staying with me, strenuously denies this. If true, I can only say what I have never in my life said, or thought to say, ‘To Hell with the Pope.’

“These abominable doings have been overshadowed by a still more important event in the world, a revolution in China, which is being entirely successful on the lines of the Turkish revolution of 1908.

“3rd Nov.—Poor Lady Colin Campbell is dead.

“4th Nov.—The news from Tripoli is sickening. A young English officer serving with the Turkish army as volunteer has telegraphed how he and another Englishman, a correspondent of the ‘Daily Mirror,’ were with the Turkish troops when they reoccupied the oasis outside Tripoli, and how they found hundreds of women’s corpses mutilated in the mosque with children’s corpses, the work of these cowardly Italian ruffians. It is the most hideous story ever told about any war, and must I think force our infamous Foreign Office to intervene, although Grey and Asquith have both been excusing the Italian Government in Parliament, and refusing all information. The Turks now have reoccupied the outer forts of Tripoli, and are summoning the Italians to surrender. The Italian fleet has sailed away, it is said, to do new murder in the Ægean, but I cannot think that this will be allowed. Good may yet come out of this monstrous evil, for there will be a revulsion of feeling, and the world will see how hideous Christianity has become divorced from its beliefs, a mere religion of rapine.

“Stead has written again asking me to attend a meeting he is getting up at Whitehead’s Tabernacle against the Italians. The November number of ‘Egypt’ is out, and will probably be suppressed at Cairo. I have promised Stead to get him a handsome subscription if he adopts my programme of coercing Italy, but I do not trust the man. One never knows whether there may not be some Russian intrigue at the back of his philanthropic agitations.

“8th Nov.—The Italian horror gets worse and worse as more news comes in. Grey, in order to distract attention from Tripoli has come forward with a statement in explanation of our relations with Germany, and the newspapers are away after this new hare. It is an old trick he has played more than once, for though an ignoramus in foreign politics he knows exactly how to deal with the House of Commons. I am preparing my letter to Stead as a pamphlet, and shall call it ‘The Italian Horror.’

“9th Nov.—Half-a-dozen foolish Major Generals have written to the ‘Pall Mall Gazette,’ outraged at my ‘Gordon at Khartoum,’ saying they are going to memorialize the Lord Chancellor with a view to my being deprived of my functions as Justice of the Peace in the County of Sussex. These wise men have not stopped to enquire whether I have any such function to be deprived of, their anger being caused by a passage which they consider vilifies the British Army. I shall let them run on and make fools of themselves for awhile.

“12th Nov. (Sunday).—Beauclerk just returned from his gold digging in Alaska. He and Belloc dined with us. The sensation of the moment is that the Tory Party has decided to elect as its leader, in succession to Arthur Balfour, who resigned last week, one Bonar Law. It appears that the old Tories would not stand Austen Chamberlain for the place, and the Tariff Reformers would not stand Walter Long, and this Law is a compromise.

“13th Nov.—Worth Forest. The Ottoman Government has remonstrated to the European Powers about the Italian atrocities as a breach of the rules of war, but these have answered that they are ‘unable to take action.’ It is certain that the Tripoli raid was arranged beforehand with France and England at the time of the Agadir business. I am less sure about Germany. [It is now known that the German Government did not approve of the raid. The French had agreed to it with Italy as a ‘compensation’ to Italy for their own misdeeds in Morocco. Our Foreign Office approved, seeing in it a means of detaching Italy from the Triple Alliance. A scoundrel affair as ever was perpetrated.]

“15th Nov.—Worth Forest. There was a debate yesterday in the House of Commons about my book, ‘Gordon at Khartoum,’ in which Colonel Seely, representing the War Office, used strong language, and undertook to approach the Lord Chancellor with a view to having me removed from the Commission of the Peace and from my position as Deputy Lieutenant of the County, neither of which dignities has ever been mine. It is all very absurd, and now I shall answer. I had just sat down to write one when a young man named Duckworth arrived, much bedraggled by the rain, after a long wandering to find me in the Forest, and asked for an interview on the subject for the ‘Daily News.’ I gave him tea, but no information.

“17th Nov.—My reply to Seely is printed in the ‘Daily News,’ ‘Daily Mail,’ and other morning papers. The gallant Generals are more angry than ever at having made fools of themselves, and there is talk of their getting the law strengthened, so as to prevent criticism of the Army.

“18th Nov.—The post has brought me a number of anonymous abusive letters, with others of congratulation on my reply to Seely.

“I have just finished reading the first volume of Count Paul Hoensbroech’s ‘Fourteen Years a Jesuit,’ which interests me enormously, though his attitude of antagonism to the Society is not mine. Still I know enough of Jesuitism to recognize his narrative as in the main true. For instance, I remember well a terrible ‘retreat’ given at Stonyhurst, in which the physical horrors of hell were emphasized in detail just as he describes them, and there are a hundred small points of discipline I recognize as exact, while also the general spiritual atmosphere of the place is vividly reproduced. The Jesuit novitiate is the most mentally crushing process ever invented, and I remember well meeting William Kerr on the first day of his release from I forget how many years of absolute seclusion. It was at some function of the Redemptorist Convent at Clapham, and I walked back with him from it across the Common, I think to Putney, and he told me something of his life as a novice. He was like an owl that had wandered out into the daylight, an absolutely different man from what I had known him before his experience. This must have been somewhere in the seventies.

“22nd Nov.—George Curzon made an excellent speech the other day at a Persian dinner, and I have written to him, urging him to take up the Mohammedan cause as champion of Islam.

“25th Nov.—Newbuildings. The recent attacks on me and my book are causing it to sell well, and we are printing an extra 200 copies. Meynell arrived for the week end with Housman, author of ‘The Shropshire Lad,’ and we had a poetical evening, Meynell reading us ‘Modern Love’ with a running commentary, an excellent entertainment, as good as the best of lectures.

“26th Nov. (Sunday).—I took Housman for a walk and asked him how he had come to write his early verses and whether there was any episode in his life which suggested their gruesome character, but he assured me it was not so. He had lived as a boy in Worcestershire, not in Shropshire, though within sight of the Shropshire hills, and there was nothing gruesome to record. He shows no trace now of anything romantic, being a typical Cambridge Don, prim in his manner, silent and rather shy, conventional in dress and manner, learned, accurate, and well-informed. He is professor there of Latin, talking fairly well, but not brilliantly or with any originality, depressed in tone, and difficult to rouse to any strong expression of opinion. Nevertheless, I like him, and with Meynell’s help we got him to discuss his own poems, though he refused absolutely to read them out. He read instead one of mine, in response to my having read one of his, the one I like best, ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ I have a great admiration for his ‘Shropshire Lad,’ on account of its ballad qualities and the wonderful certainty in his choice of exactly the right word. We had much pleasant talk all day, and sat up again till twelve at night telling ghost stories. He takes an interest in these. Housman’s personal appearance is one of depression and indifferent health. He does not smoke, drinks little, and would, I think, be quite silent if he were allowed to be.

“28th Nov.—Grey has made his promised declaration on foreign affairs, avoiding, as I thought he would, all dealing with the Tripoli atrocities, or explanation as to whether he knew of the intended raid. All he said was that the attitude of the Government was one of neutrality and non-intervention, and that he had no ‘official’ information of the barbarities committed on either side.

“29th Nov.—Russia has sent a new ultimatum to Persia demanding the dismissal of Schuster [an American who had for two years been working successfully to reorganize Persian finance, too successfully to please the Russian Government], complete control at Teheran, and an indemnity. This means the conquest of Persia, and already Russian troops have marched. The old Shah will probably be restored, and North Persia Cromerised after the fashion of Egypt. It is an infamy for which Grey is responsible.

“2nd Dec.—The Persian Government has refused the Russian ultimatum, denouncing at the same time the perfidy of England. This is the only dignified way to take it, and though it sounds desperate, the best chance for the Persians of saving their national life. It is just possible there may be a revulsion of feeling in this country which may upset Grey, though it is unlikely, and a new policy substituted favourable to Islam.

“5th Dec.—The Russians are invading Persia. McCullagh, the war correspondent in Tripoli for the ‘New York World’ and ‘The Westminster Gazette,’ an excellent Irishman from Tyrone, came to see me. He has arranged to give a course of lectures in the principal towns in England on the Italian barbarities. I offered to help him financially, but he said his lectures were to be well paid by a business firm, which had undertaken it at £10 a night.

“6th Dec.—The royal tent set up for the Durbar has been burnt at Delhi, which looks like the beginning of demonstrations against the King, who has just landed at Bombay.

“7th Dec.—Pierre Lôti has written an excellent letter condemning the Italian raid on Tripoli, in reply to an Italian editor, asking his opinion on their glorious campaign. George Curzon has made another admirable speech in the Lords about Persia and has drawn from Morley something like a repudiation of Grey’s outrageous approval of the Russian ultimatum. It is a great thing to have secured a man of his calibre on our side.

“10th Dec. (Sunday).—A letter from Margot which amuses me. I had asked whether I should send her pheasants. She says she loves game, hares and pheasants, or even turkeys; all are of real use to her vast family, living in Downing Street and entertaining sixty to eighty people a week in the season, and thirty to fifty just now, is too much to expect of a Prime Minister with seven children, on £5,000 a year, etc. There is something comic in the idea of my contributing to the support of Downing Street just at present, and acting the part of Whiteley to the Prime Ministerial family.

“13th Dec.—The newspapers print news of a proclamation at Delhi, removing the seat of the Viceregal Government there from Calcutta, restoring also the unity of Bengal. This is a notable event.

“15th Dec.—Grey has made another long speech in the House of Commons about his Persian policy, in which he approves all the Russians are doing. What he is really aiming at is to Cromerise Persia, preserving the form of its independence while destroying the substance. Russia is to do this in Persia as we do it in Egypt, and Italy, perhaps, in Tripoli, and France in Morocco. They would do it in Turkey, too, if the Turks had no army. It is the modern way of devouring the Eastern nations. The Russian army is advancing on Teheran, where the Mejliss refuses to comply with the ultimatum, and we shall see a second edition there of Tripoli.

“16th Dec.—I have written a Ballade of resignation for Margot, which I intend to send her with a peacock for her Xmas dinner.

“I have been reading a volume of Scotch ballads, the only poetry now that gives me any pleasure. They rouse me from my gloom, especially that best of all, ‘Sir Patrick Spens.’ I am troubled at the scramble for Asia which is going on. The Russian army, with Grey’s approval, is advancing on Teheran, where the Mejliss refuses to comply with their ultimatum, and we shall see a second edition there of Tripoli. There is talk of joint European intervention in China, and the year 1912 will see a partition of the Ottoman Empire. As for Egypt I no longer see any hope. Its chance of independence is bound up with that of Turkey, and will not survive the destruction of the other. Winston, I heard, has written to Seely, scolding him for his rudeness to me.

“20th Dec.—Browne has written to me in despair about Persia, where the Mejliss is standing to its guns. I think the Mejliss quite right. To accept the ultimatum would be to abandon all hope, and it is better to die fighting than to be swallowed slowly by the Russian boa constrictor and digested at leisure. Theirs is a council of despair, but even despair has chances.

“26th Dec.—There has been an abominable massacre by the Russians at Tabriz, 500 persons, men, women, and children, killed, women raped, and every imaginable abomination perpetrated. This is Grey’s doing as distinctly as if he had given the order, yet almost no protest is made in our press, nor is there chance of an indignation meeting. It is hopeless my going on fighting under these conditions, a single voice against the world’s, and I am weary of a useless struggle. Belloc dined with me last night, but I could not get him to take much interest in anything but the parochical politics of the Insurance Bill. He asked me who I thought ought to be Poet Laureate after Austin. I said Gilbert Murray. [Because he had written no original verse.]

“29th Dec.—Went to see McCullagh at a nursing home in John Street, where he has been for an operation. The Tripoli atrocities are all condoned now by English public opinion as will be the Russian atrocities at Tabriz. Grey has invented a formula about these things. He has ‘no official knowledge,’ which means that the Consuls have not reported them as having themselves witnessed what has been done. They have had orders to hold their tongues.

“Meynell dined with me to-night, and we discussed the future of civilization. Meynell declares that the world will eventually come round to my opinions and acknowledge me as a forerunner. I wish I could believe it, but I see no sign of any such conversion. On the contrary I fear I am a belated survival of an age which has almost disappeared. The best chance the world has is perhaps the possible resurgence of China, which yesterday proclaimed itself a republic, and chose Sun Yat Sen, a Christian, its first President. But will not Europe intervene to wreck its chances as it has intervened in Turkey and Persia? It is all a question of material strength, and Asia, in order to survive, is obliged to remodel itself according to European standards, although in so doing it sacrifices half the value of its traditional ideas.

“31st Dec. (Sunday).—To-day a sad year ends, the worst politically I can remember since the eighties, bloodshed, massacre, and destruction everywhere, and all accepted here in England with cynical approval, our Foreign Office being accomplice with the evildoers, and Grey their apologist. It has been a losing battle in which I have fought long, but with no result of good. I am old, and weary, and discouraged, and would if I could slink out of the fight. I am useless in face of an entirely hostile world.

“In the afternoon I went to see Mrs. Morris at her daughter’s house in Hammersmith Terrace, and found her lying alone, quite invalided in a chair. She had come up to London for her teeth, and other ailments, but was glad to see me. We were, however, interrupted in our talk by de Morgan and his wife, who looked in. He is a lugubrious little man with a certain caustic wit battling with senility, his wife a busy little woman, with a more cheerful manner. I remember having met her at Kelmscott House when she was tending Morris, which she did with great devotion during his last illness. Then I went on to Walker’s, who lives next door, who showed me some of his book treasures, amongst them a complete set of the Kelmscott Press works in vellum. He is a good and modest man, who began as a plain workman and has now an assured position at the head of the printing trade, at least of that branch of it which deals with illustrated books. Morris, he told me, had once offered him partnership in the Kelmscott Press, ‘But I had too good a sense of proportion,’ he said, ‘to accept.’ And so the year 1911 has slipped away.”