Part 1 (1/2)
Fighting For Peace.
by Henry Van d.y.k.e.
FOREWORD
This brief series of chapters is not a tale
”Of moving accidents by flood and field, Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach.”
Some dangers I have pa.s.sed through during the last three years, but nothing to speak of.
Nor is it a romance in the style of those thrilling novels of secret diplomacy which I peruse with wonder and delight in hours of relaxation, chiefly because they move about in worlds regarding which I have no experience and little faith.
There is nothing secret or mysterious about the American diplomatic service, so far as I have known it. Of course there are times when, like every other honestly and properly conducted affair, it does not seek publicity in the newspapers. That, I should suppose, must always be a fundamental condition of frank and free conversation between governments as between gentlemen. There is a certain kind of reserve which is essential to candor.
But American diplomacy has no picturesque meetings at midnight in the gloom of lonely forests; no confabulations in black cellars with bands of hireling desperadoes waiting to carry out its decrees; no disguises, no masks, no dark lanterns--nothing half so exciting and melodramatic.
On the contrary, it is amazingly plain and straightforward, with plenty of hard work, but always open and aboveboard. That is the rule for the diplomatic service of the United States.
Its chief and constant aims are known to all men. First, to maintain American principles and interests, and to get a fair showing for them in the world. Second, to preserve and advance friendly relations and intercourse with the particular nation to which the diplomat is sent.
Third, to promote a just and firm and free peace throughout the world, so that democracy everywhere may live without fear.
It was the last of these three aims that acted as the main motive in my acceptance of President Wilson's invitation to go out as American Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg in the summer of 1913. It was pleasant, of course, to return for a while to the land from which my ancestors came so long ago. It seemed also that some useful and interesting work might be done to forward the common interests and ideals of the United States and the Netherlands--that brave, liberty-loving nation from which our country learned and received so much in its beginnings--and in particular that there might be opportunity for co-operation in the Far East, where the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines are next-door neighbors. But the chief thing that drew me to Holland was the desire to promote the great work of peace which had been begun by the International Peace Conferences at The Hague. This indeed was what the President especially charged me to do.
Two conferences had already been held and had accomplished much. But their work was incomplete. It lacked firm attachments and sanctions. It was left to a certain extent ”hanging in the air.” It needed just those things which the American delegates to the Conference of 1907 had advocated--the establishment of a Permanent Court of Arbitral Justice; an International Prize Court; an agreement for the protection of private property at sea in time of war; the further study and discussion of the question of the reduction of armaments by the nations; and so on. Most of these were the things of which Germany had hitherto prevented the attainment. A third International Peace Conference was necessary to secure and carry on the work of the first two. The President told me to do all that I properly could to forward the a.s.sembling of that conference in the Palace of Peace at the earliest possible date.
So I went to Holland as an envoy of the world-peace founded on justice which is America's great desire. For that cause I worked and strove. Of that cause I am still a devoted follower and servant. I am working for it now, but with a difference. It is evident that we cannot maintain that cause, as the world stands to-day, without fighting for it. And after it is won, it will need protection. It must be Peace with Righteousness and Power.
The following chapters narrate some of the experiences--things seen and heard and studied during my years of service abroad--which have forced me to this conclusion. To the articles which were published in Scribner's Magazine for September, October, and November, 1917, I have added two short chapters on the cause of the war and the kind of peace America is fighting for.
The third peace conference is more needed, more desirable, than ever.
But we shall never get it until the military forces of Germany are broken, and the predatory Potsdam gang which rules them is brought low.
Chapter I
FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS
I
It takes a New England farmer to note and interpret the signs of coming storm on a beautiful and sunny day. Perhaps his power is due in part to natural sharpness, and in part to the innate pessimism of the Yankee mind, which considers the fact that the hay is cut but not yet in the barn a sufficient reason for believing that ”it'll prob'ly rain t'morrow.”
I must confess that I had not enough of either of these qualities to be observant and fearful of the presages of the oncoming tempest which lurked in the beautiful autumn and winter of 1913-14 in Europe. Looking back at them now, I can see that the signs were ominous. But anybody can be wise after the event, and the role of a reminiscent prophet is too easy to be worth playing.
Certainly all was bright and tranquil when we rolled through the pleasant land of France and the rich cities of Belgium, and came by s.h.i.+p-thronged Rotterdam to The Hague in the first week of October, 1913.
Holland was at her autumnal best. Wide pastures wonderfully green were full of drowsy, contented cattle. The level brown fields and gardens were smoothly ploughed and harrowed for next year's harvest, and the vast tulip-beds were ready to receive the little gray bulbs which would overflow April with a flood-tide of flowers. On the broad ca.n.a.ls innumerable barges and sloops and motor-boats were leisurely pa.s.sing, and on the little side-ca.n.a.ls and ditches which drained the fields the duckweed spread its pale-emerald carpet undisturbed. In the woods--the tall woods of Holland--the elms and the lindens were putting on frosted gold, and the ma.s.sy beeches glowed with ruddy bronze in the sunlight.
The quaint towns and villages looked at themselves in the waters at their feet and were content. Slowly the long arms of the windmills turned in the suave and s.h.i.+mmering air. Everybody, in city and country, seemed to be busy without haste. And overhead, the luminous cloud mountains--the poor man's Alps--marched placidly with the wind from horizon to horizon.