Agent of Peace

by Jennifer Hobhouse Balme

  This movement is daily being reinforced by those who are weary of war or who have learnt to see this war in its true light and it is bringing constant pressure upon the government to begin negotiations for Peace. You can imagine how greatly this movement was helped by the noble speeches of your great Chancellor which in fact are a mighty weapon for its use.

  Now, hitherto Asquith etc. has taken the line of ignoring this movement but I have recently heard that it was grown so powerful of late that they, the government, must reckon with it very soon.

  Meanwhile, the replies to your Chancellor’s speeches which read to you as insults are, I believe, Grey and Asquith’s last efforts in what we call ‘playing to the gallery’. The less insistent phrases are intended for you, the bombastic words are for their adherents not in England but amongst the Allies.

  Please try and believe this and convey to Herr Bethmann Hollweg what we long to express to him, our deep gratitude and our determination to support him to the utmost.*

  I have profound belief in personal contact and the wonderful way in which difficulties melt away when two people come face to face, finding after all that the points that unite are stronger than those that divide.

  It was borne in on my mind last night how good it might be if you or one of your great statesmen wanted change of air and took it, say – at Scheveningen and if Grey or one of his more sympathetic colleagues like Lord Crewe or Lord Robert Cecil had a fancy to visit Holland and you met by chance upon the sands – talking first only as men, till a basis was found for the consideration of statesmen.

  Such a plan seems to me more sensible than continued slaughter and if you agreed and wished I could make a similar suggestion to them in London.

  If I presume in writing these thoughts, please forgive me.

  My visit to Ruhleben is postponed till tomorrow so that I cannot now leave Berlin before Thursday.

  I have the honour to be

  Yours very sincerely

  Emily Hobhouse

  B[erlin] 20th June 16

  Dear Miss Hobhouse!5

  Many thanks for your kind letter. I quite agree with you that eventual negotiations for peace would be facilitated by preliminary unofficial conversations. But if I am not mistaken about the dispositions of your leading men, I really don’t see how any profit could derive at the present moment from such meeting as suggested in your letter. The reception given to the Chancellor’s speeches as well as many other sympshomes [sic] go a long way to show that any further step on our part in the direction of peace would only be considered in England as another proof of our inability to continue the war and would have, in consequence, the effect of giving a new encouragement to the war-party in your country.

  If there is any possibility of realising your suggestion, it seems to me that it would be for England to move in the matter.

  Thanking you once more for your kind visit.

  Believe me

  Very sincerely yours

  Jagow

  His Excellency Baron von Jagow

  21st June, 1916

  Dear Herr von Jagow:6

  I quite agree that the proposal to meet privately which I suggested should not come from you.

  My idea was that the suggestion should be made by me to the men at home and if by chance I found a willingness, I would try to let you know via Switzerland and Herr von Romberg.

  You see, it would give me confidence in making the suggestion in England if I knew that you would not reject it on your side. That knowledge, however, would be for myself alone.

  I feel sure my first work is to insist on the fact that Germany is quite able to go on with the war from all points of xxx [ileg] and that her desire for peace is based on reason and Humanity and not on lack of food, money or men. That truth when learnt should go far to clear the way.

  I have seen Dr. Lewandowski today who has given me helpful and interesting facts about the health of the women and children.

  Yours very sincerely

  Emily Hobhouse

  PS Scheveningen would be the place I should suggest to them in London.

  B[erlin] 21st June 1916

  Dear Miss Hobhouse!7

  Naturally I should not reject a proposal for informal conversations coming from England. But as I am afraid of misinterpretation, I ask you not to mention that I agreed to it in advance.

  I am glad you received the impression here that we can’t be starved out and that we are not at the end of our forces anyway.

  Believe me

  Very sincerely yours

  Jagow

  Notes

  * Dr Elisabeth Rotten was born near Berlin to Swiss parents. By 1913 she was a lecturer at Cambridge University on German literature. She returned to Berlin in 1914 to help foreigners in Germany and co-founded the Bund Neues Vaterland and later the German League for Human Rights. She attended the 1915 International Women’s Congress in The Hague, and worked for the foundation of the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom in Germany. She was instrumental in providing considerable help for civilian internees in Germany. Later, she became a member of the Society of Friends.

  * Lichnowsky was German Ambassador to Great Britain before the war.

  ** Alice Salomon was a PhD and leading light in social work and schools in Germany. Born to Jewish parents, she converted to Protestantism in 1914.

  *** Working women’s home.

  * Lady Aberdeen was President of the International Council of Women 1893–1936. Her husband was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and then Governor General of Canada. By 1914 they were living in Ireland.

  * Lewandowski was the Leading Medical Officer in schools.

  ** Wolfgang Heine was a member of the Social Democratic Party and long-time member of the Reichstag.

  * Schultze was the internationally known pastor and Chairman of the Juvenile Health Society of Berlin whose meeting with the English Quaker Henry Hodgkin just before war started led to the formation of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in England. He was imprisoned many times during the war.

  ** Minna Cauer attended the Women’s Congress in The Hague. She kept a diary and said of her Berlin meeting with Emily: ‘Interesting hours! Miss Hobhouse, English woman through and through, one woman of her race which one must admire and love …’ The two women talked about German-British relations and felt that each country could offer something to the other.

  * Dr Synge was a South African member of the Ladies Commission to investigate conditions in the camps in South Africa for women and children whose homes had been burnt by the British in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902.

  ** Many of these would have been food parcels sent from Berne.

  * This reflects the desire expressed in Emily’s Journal to keep the military out of politics. Bethmann Hollweg’s eldest son was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. He was killed in the first year of the war.

  1. Journal vol. 2 pp. 15–85

  2. GFO (German Foreign Office, acknowledgement to Akten der Politischen Abteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin, Archivband R 20465), D937560–3)

  3. Ibid., D959722–3

  4. Ibid., D937564–70

  5. Ibid., D959728–31 or D937571–4 – there are two separate versions of this letter

  6. Ibid., D937579–81

  7. Ibid., D959725–6

  9

  EMILY’S JOURNAL: DISASTER AND THE RETURN TO ENGLAND

  At the Swiss frontier some difficulty was offered for the first time and the officer would not let us pass with the courier till he showed him my English passport. This franked me and mercifully was not stamped. This escort, as before, left me alone in my compartment and I was thankful for the rest. It was a long and very hot journey stopping at every station till we reached Zürich at about 7 p.m. There changing trains, in the crowd I lost my escort. Heat intense. I wired to the Kochers to meet me at Berne and arrived there half dead at 9.30 p.m. I had wired from Singen to Angelica [Balabanoff] to meet me at Zürich, but she never got the message. The Kochers,
sweet people, met me and drove me to the Volkshaus where Phoebe had come with my boxes. We sat and talked and agreed I should spend Sunday afternoon in their garden resting if I did not get off. My desire was to leave next day for England.

  Saturday, June 24th I went to the Consulate early to ask for a visé for England. Imagine my consternation when a long paper was handed to me with an immense and detailed list of questions to be filled in for myself and Phoebe. I sat down to write the replies till I came to one which asked if one had been in ‘Enemy territory since 1914’. Then I saw I should be obliged to tell my story to Grant Duff the British Minister, whom according to my written promise before leaving Berne, I had intended to call upon on leaving the Consul.

  I finished Phoebe’s papers and departing prepared to go to the English Legation – I was exhausted and very agitated lest I should be baulked in my desire to reach London and give my message of peace. My heart was palpitating violently, the more so coming back to the high Swiss altitudes. I went for a cup of strong black coffee and then took the tram to the Legation. The Interview was very entertaining and once begun I felt at ease and master of the situation.

  I had been told that Mr Duff was … really at present in a state of such excitement as hardly to be considered normal and the knowledge of this helped me to an understanding of how to deal with him. I treated him therefore like a nurse does a fever patient, or a fretful child. It succeeded. In outward appearance he lacked dignity and reminded me of the ‘little cock-sparrow’ giving itself airs. On my entrance, he did not offer to shake hands but motioned me to a chair with a lordly gesture and before I could make any remark he began: ‘Miss Hobhouse, have you directly or indirectly by word or by letter been undertaking Peace propaganda? Have you attended any peace meetings, conferences or Congresses? Have you been consorting with Pacifists, Socialists or Germans.’

  To this question which was longer and fuller than here appears I made no reply – but instead I said, when he paused for breath, ‘Mr Duff, I have come up here this morning to take you into my confidence. I have been to Ruhleben Camp’. I fully thought the man would have had a fit – and taking advantage of his temporary paralysis I went calmly on to say ‘and so I should be very glad if you will help me to get home’.

  Then the fullness of his wrath fell upon me: ‘You have been to Germany’ – ‘Enemy territory’ – ‘Without British permission’ – ‘you have broken the law’, etc, etc. Then he drew a picture of my gruesome fate – how France would not let me pass – she would put me into prison, how Switzerland would not keep those France turned out – and as for England he was sure she would never let me land again! So I laughed a little and said I really did not think it was as bad as all that and asked what law I had broken; I was quite unaware that I had broken any law. This put him in a difficulty, as he evidently could not conjure up any law to meet the case. So he flung out again in a burst of passion and I sat quiet till it was over. Then I remarked that I had thought he would like to hear about Ruhleben but he scornfully said he did not want to hear – he knew all about Ruhleben. So I said, ‘Very good then I need not trouble you, but I know many in England from Lord Newton* downwards are anxious for details. When another burst of fury had subsided, I said: ‘Mr. Duff, I know that there are many things that you and I look at from a very different point of view but one thing I am sure we have in common, and that is our desire for the honour and well being of England’. At this he became quite calm and childlike and said penitently, ‘Well and what were your impressions of Ruhleben?’ With this I plunged in and described everything, and shewed him samples of the bread I had brought and he was obliged to say, ‘M looks fairly good’ and at the end I said being in Germany I had became possessed of information that I felt it my duty to convey without delay to the British Government. ‘And what,’ said he, ‘is the character of the information?’ ‘That Mr Duff,’ I replied, ‘is for the British Government.’ He was silenced.

  He said he must wire for instructions. I said, ‘By all means, pray do.’ Then he burst into a fresh and final tirade of anger – very forced and ridiculous to which I replied that I was content to leave it to Sir Edward Grey. I rose and he opened the door for me and amused me by putting both hands behind his back evidently regarding me as pitch – so I put up my hand cheerfully and said, ‘Goodbye Mr Duff,’ and perforce he had to meet it – doing so only with the extreme tips of his fingers and a face expressive of distaste and disdain. I was immensely tickled – the whole thing such a childish farce – and I came away feeling completely conqueror and sure as could be that I should get my pass.

  But I was undoubtedly exhausted.

  I forgot to say that the first thing that morning before going to the Consul I had gone to the German Embassy feeling it my duty to give an account of myself – and because I feared if I did not go there first I might be forbidden later. Having to go by 11 a.m. to the Consulate I had very little time. I did not see von Schubert, but had a half of an hour with von Romberg, whose warning of the mental condition of Mr Duff proved most useful.

  After the Legation I went to lunch and to rest which I needed badly. Frau Kocher and her husband came and with him I made an elaborate scheme of correspondence in case of need. He was, as ever, most thoughtful and kind. I had also help from Gertrude Woker. All this afternoon and the next day I must remain in suspense as to my fate.

  Sunday morning, June 25th I was resting when Gertrude Woker came in to hear the news and tell hers and to promise to care for my papers and documents. I told her my plan of writing also to Dr Aletta Jacobs to tell her of my visit to Berlin and the possibility of a message having to be sent from London to Herr von Jagow and that correspondence via Switzerland was so uncertain I thought it better to safeguard matters by arranging to transmit a message also through her if necessary. Of course this necessity would only arise if I succeeded in reaching England – in seeing Sir Edward Grey and in laying my information and message before him. In my ignorance I did not know or realize that Governments, even when at deathgrips, have links through the Red Cross for instance and through neutral Embassies. This I learnt later – at the time I thought of them with an unbridged chasm between them and that for the fulfillment of my mission I must prepare and keep a link. Gertrude fully [agreed] though she knew only the bare outline – I felt I must tell no one in Berne except von Romberg. With all this in mind I had prepared a letter to Aletta Jacobs – very short which I read her and she thought it quite clear. I should, of course, only post it if I were certain of my passports. We parted, and after lunch I went as agreed to 25 Laupen Strasse to spend a quiet afternoon in the beautiful Kocher garden. I was so thankful to be still, and think, and to have my shaken body at rest. It soothed and calmed me. After tea towards 6 o’clock Baron von Romberg called on me there to say goodbye and to hear more in detail of my impressions in Germany. I spoke freely. He was very nice, very cordial and very much moved. He dropped the Ambassador and was purely and only the man. We talked till nearly dusk that midsummer evening. He told me, should my passports be denied me, to rely upon him to help me to Holland, I thanked him and said, ‘I can’t believe they will stop me, I won’t believe it.’ He shook hands with warmth and unveiled feeling and left me. He had spoken very freely of Germany and of her attitude, her powers, her feeling. A good man I feel sure and a tremendously hard worker – and so sensitive!

  I followed in the tram to the Volkshaus and dropped exhausted into bed.

  Monday, June 26th Warm and misty damp, occasional showers. Everything sticky. I had my trunks half packed hoping for the best, and the moment the Consulate was open I was there to learn my fate. To my relief the visé was given without another word, nor anything to fill in, only the Consul badgered me a good deal with questions about Mrs Holbach and wanted her address. This I would not let out – it was not my business – and I told him definitely Mrs Holbach was a chance acquaintance merely, and I was in no sense her keeper – that she was living in Switzerland quietly with her husband and family
and I could not understand why she should be worried. He dropped it and then said I must provide more photographs and that, though all else was complete, more photographs were necessary. The time was short. I pleaded – he was obdurate and I had to drag my tired, agitated body from shop to shop begging for a hasty snapshot likeness. It was 12.30 p.m. before I found one – was photoed and promised them by 2.30 p.m. Then I ventured to go and buy my tickets provisionally, got some lunch – sent Phoebe to the Wokers and Kochers with the news and worked on with the packing. I had barely time to run out and get an omelet and be at the photographers at the hour. Phoebe as usual tiresome, amusing herself in a shop, and keeping me waiting. A truly impossible girl! This delay on her part when every moment was of consequence and my fatigue and anxiety beyond words, added to my agitation. The photographs were given me in a large square envelope and I just put them into my green linen bag (the one Oliver gave me), which I always carried for passports and papers. I had also put into this bag after lunch my letter written the previous day to Dr. Aletta Jacobs and of which I have already spoken. And therein hangs a tale! As I have said I could not send it till absolutely sure of my departure and the French visé had still to be secured. I wanted also a lucid moment in which to read it over once more to assure myself it was quite clear – and so I had put it into this precious bag thinking that when Phoebe mounted this long flight to the Consul’s office I could read it again while waiting in the vestibule below. As also I have said the day was warm and moist, everything was sticky and also alas! was the gum of this open letter or that of the large envelope containing my new photographs, or both. Arrived at the Consulate I sat down to get my breath and opened my bag to give Phoebe the photographs to take upstairs. At that moment the hall door opened and one of the officials of the office passed in from his luncheon. I bowed, made way for him to pass and said impulsively: ‘May I hand you the photographs which I was asked to procure,’ and gave him the packet. Phoebe followed him upstairs and I was left, quiet and alone, in the cool dim hall. Then I bethought me of my letter that this was the moment to read it over carefully. Imagine my horror to find on opening my bag that it was not there. I searched and searched again – all no use. I felt so sure I had put it there. Could it have been left on my toilet table after all? I went through every action of the day but could come to no other conclusion. I was sure ’twas in my bag – yet it wasn’t – so it must be in hotel. I waited endlessly – Phoebe did not come down. Why such delay? The passports had been entirely ready with the exception of gumming on the photo and I feared missing the hour at the French Consul. After an interminable interval Phoebe came down – with the passports – and horrors, in her hand my lost letter saying in her cool detached way the official said he thought this ‘was not meant for them’. I exclaimed – and she too seemed rather put about – said there was nobody there but they had kept her a long time – they had seemed to be very pleased about something and chuckled together and they had gone into an inner room and locked the door which they had never done before and she heard the typing and she said she thought they had copied it. In my own mind I had no doubt, and that became certainty when I drew out the letter – saw that the sheets were soiled with typing ink and pinned together.