Chapter X: The French Invade Morocco (3)

“_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.”