The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY APRIL 3rd, 1926. WAR HISTORY.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 April 1926, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY APRIL 3rd, 1926. WAR HISTORY.

JJv degrees the inner history of the Great War is being revealed. The latest, and certainly an illuminative, contribution to the- very interesting subject is to he found in “Intimate Papers” of Colonel E. M. House, the close friend and confident of President Woodrow Wilson. Colonel House was regarded as the “mystery man” of the war period, and he was very much behind the scenes and responsible for the inner workings of the policy of America before the intervention of the United States in 1917. While flie war was in progress lie visited Germany and was in intimate touch. In the end he was present with Woodrow Wilson at the signing of peace at Versailles. Tho published papers reveal an intimate story. According to the reviewer Colonel .House enlarges upon Woodrow Wilson’s good qualities, his analytical power, his lucidity of expression, his judgment, and his patriotism. But he Ls not blind to his friend’s defects. Thus lie regretfully agrees with Wilson’s characterisation of himself as “a man with a one-track mind ; he does not seem able to carry along more than one idea at a. time.” He “dodges trouble.” . . . “Let mo put something up to him that is disagreeable, and I have great difficulty in getting him to meet it. . . Another phase of his character is the intensity of his prejudices against people. He likes a few, and is verv loyal to them; hut his prejudices are many, and often unjust. He finds great difficulty in conferring with men against whom he lias a prejudice, and in whom he can find nothing good.” “The President does most important things without reflection, and will one day make a serious blunder—as he did in endeavouring to play a lone hand at Versailles. Colonel House disposes of the suggestion that the President adopted a policy of neutrality out of tenderness for Germany and from a failure to appreciate the moral issues involved in the war, and in the German attack upon Belgium. His sympathies were with the Allies from the beginning. He declared to the Colonel that if Germany won it would change the courna of civlisation, and make the United States n military nation. “He goes even further than T in his condemnation of Germany’s part in this war, and almost allows his feeling to include tho German people as a whole,

rather than the leaders.” But two eonsidertions inclined him to keep out. side the ring. In the first place, “he believed that he owed it to the world to prevent the spreading of the conflagration, that he owed it to tlio country to save it from the horrors of war. There was also some truth in the popular impression that he looked upon the war as a distant event, terrible and tragic, but one which did not concern us closely in the political sense. He had not yet come to realise that, his great oi>portnnitv was to bo in foreign affairs.” In the second place, it was more than doubtful whether, in the then state of opinion, t American people would agree to intervention. Colonel House appreciated the second difficulty, as did Ambassador Page, who was also strongly pro-Ally. In the middle of 1915 l’ago wrote:

“It is a curious thing to say but the only solution I .see is another Lusitania outrage, which would force war.” In 1911, 1915 an 1910 Colonel House was personal representative of the President to the European Governments. He was not so much a glorified ambassador, an intermediary, as an extension of the President himself. His l'lino tion was to keep his finger on the pulse of developments, and supplement the ambassadorial "reports. He travelled to and from Europe frequently, and spent much time in London, where his tact was instrumental in smoothing o'er several misunderstandings. Incidentally lie was bold enough to snub Mrs Asquith in her own drawingroom. “She started to criticise the President, for she has a free tongue, and says what comes first to mind. I silenced her by saying that site did not know conditions or anything of the situation, nor did she know what the President had in mind, but had gotl.cn the usual prejudiced view of him, which was untrue and unfair.” Ho bad a conversation with Lord Fisher, in which the latter deplored the authorities’ refusal to adopt one of his many schemes. He wanted the French to give the British the entire coast to defend. The fleet would then have shelled the Germans from the sea. and driven them hack beyond the range of naval gunfire. General French approved, hut Joffre would not permit the British to occupy the coast exclusively. threatening, if they insisted on doing so to make a neparate peace. ’ Fisher said that he would have told Joffre to make a separate peace and go to Hell; that Britain had control of the seas; had all the German colonics; was putting up all the money; and had to do the fighting on land as well. If they "anted to make a separate peace Great Britain "as readv. and was Hue only nation that would come out ot the war succe'-iful. ’ Although President Wilson was little by little jHM'.suadcd that America must eventually outer the arena, lie was reluctant to abandon hope of an early peace, and severaT Uit.-s were flown to that end. In January, DIG, Colonel House visited Berlin to ascertain th German attitude. Sonic* of the Gorman .Ministers were not unreasonable, hut the Emperor and the war lords were in no mind to look to America for a lead. Gerard, the American Ambassador, told him ol an interview he had had with William 11.: “I ho Kaiser talked of peace, and how it should he made and by whom, declaring that ‘1 and inv cousins, George and Nicholas, will <maki? peace when the time comes.’ Gerard says to hear him talking one would think that the Gorman, English and Bnssian peoples "'ere so many pawns upon a chessboard. Ho made it clear that mere Semocractes like' France and the United States could never take part in such a conference. His whole attitude was that war was a royal sport to he indulged in bv hereditary mnnarelis. ami concluded at their will, lie told Gi?rard ho knew Germany was right, because God was on their side, and God would not ho with them if they wore wrong; and it was hocau.V' God was with them that they had been enabled to win their victories. 1 asked Gerard whether lift was crazy or whether ho was merely posing.” Tito (imitation is an interesting revelation of Hohenzollern psychology. Altogether, the “Intimate Papers,” which cany the story down to America’s intervention, are a noteworthy (ontnbution to war history.