You will probably have noticed that, since I saw you, the Germans have sent a reply about the exchange of civilians, which gives ground for hope of an eventual agreement.
In view of this, I feel sure that the authorities here will not be in favour of private communication on the subject, on the ground of causing further complications.
In that event, shall I send the letters back to you or shall I destroy them?
Yrs very truly
Newton
At the same time Emily had written another letter to Sir Edward Grey:6
5th July 1916
Dear Sir Edward Grey,
Since writing to you last Saturday I bought a copy of Hansard to read up debates – and in especial your speech of May 24th.
With profound feeling I read these words of yours:–
‘The fact is the Allies are not beaten, and are not going to be. The first step towards peace will be when the German Government recognize that fact.’ p. 2204
Now quite by chance I happen to know that the Hansard verbatim report of that debate was in the Foreign Office of Berlin; I myself however had not read it owing to the vicissitudes of travel.
But – reading it now – it seems to explain to me a certain insistence with which von Jagow repeated: ‘The English are not beaten. It is true we Germans have had great victories, but we have also had great defeats. The English may have had no great victories but on the other hand have sustained no great defeats. We know full well the English are not beaten.’
The words struck me at the time and stand out clear in my brain, though perhaps I did not at the moment grasp their full import, and certainly did not know what now seems plain that they were a kind of reply to those words of yours.
Do please if you can find time let me see you and tell you all that passed for it weighs upon my mind.
Emily’s requests went unheeded. In fact it had been decided at the Foreign Office that no one should see her.7 So all Emily’s reasonableness had come to nothing.
Lord Newton continued in his diary on 6 July: ‘Discussion about German note & Ruhleben. R Cecil wants to intern everyone in neutral country…. Heard from Miss Hobhouse. Seems all right.’
He wrote to her from the Foreign Office that same day:8
Dear Miss Hobhouse
I am much obliged for your note. I think that I can safely undertake to dispose of the letter, fire or no fire!
Yrs vy truly
Newton
Thursday, July 6th Took my letter to the Foreign Office and walking back met Emeline Pethrick Lawrence. She asked me questions that shewed at once she knew of my visit to Germany and told me that Mrs Swanwick had told them at the Women’s International League. I felt cross and saw the difficulty of keeping a Secret. She invited me to drive with her and I accepted. At 4.30 p.m. went to call on Mr Morel at UDC [Union of Democratic Control] Office and arranged [to talk at] a meeting of Exve for Tuesday – then on to St Clements Inn making a detour to see the Margaret Macdonald Memorial in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. A pleasant tête-à-tête dinner with Emeline Lawrence (he away). She sympathetic and burning for information, little of which I could give her. Taxied back to the Hotel, she going to a meeting close by.
Friday, July 7th Margaret Clark came early but I was horribly exhausted and not able to talk to her as I wished. Very hearty and longing to know everything. Then to lunch with Bennetts in Chester Terrace. Mrs B. perfectly charming but I told her nothing as a stranger was there. When I got home callers came and at 5.30 p.m. Sylvia Parkhurst who shared my eggs tea with me and then was put to rest on my bed while we talked. She went on to speak at a meeting and I had Ravelli [a young pianist friend from South Africa] to tell me all his doings.
Saturday, July 8th No note or recollection of what happened that day. Correspondence. Dined at Bennetts and met Lady Barlow who was full of a scheme for taking her children to America.
Sunday, July 9th Kate Courtney called. When gone, came Dr Markel with his car who took me to lunch with him as previously arranged. Found him and his wife in a charming house with many rooms given over to work for the prisoners and stores for them. Mrs Markel very sweet – semi-invalid. Talked long – so sympathetic – then he drove me to the Courtneys where, however did not effect much as people kept coming in – Drakes, Fisher, Williams, etc so I came away. Expected Nell [another South African friend] that evening but she did not arrive.
Monday, July 10th Lady Barlow ’phoned that Mr John Barlow would call on me. Very glad to see him. We had a quiet Quaker talk. It was with real fervour he said: ‘I am very glad you went to Germany.’ I felt he understood the true inwardness of that act and I asked his advice about line of action which he promised to think over and tell me. Mr Ponsonby called also, I think, and many others but I cannot recollect all. F.W. Jowett* I think was one. He was curiously unlike what I expected and I had the same sense I always have with one-eyed people of not being able to fix on the right eye to talk into, being obsessed by the destroyed eye. I merely felt he was not greatly in sympathy with the Zimmerwald Socialists. Later Sir Wm Byles called and I took his advice about seeing Ministers. He looked very sad and aged and said he was going fast.
This afternoon too, Lord and Lady Devonport called. They came to hear about their boy Kearl[e]y whom I had seen in Ruhleben. They were simple folk and cried both of them. I liked her, though overdressed and magnificent diamonds. He, too was simple – a good worthy grocer – said he was going to make a speech in the House on the Camps and I begged him to deprecate Reprisals. This he promised to do. Asked me how to pronounce that word ‘proteins’. She stayed a good while and talked on in very simple homely fashion and I gave her all the details that I could.
Tuesday, July 11th In the morning to UDC office where I met C.R. Buxton, Chas Trevelyan, E.D. Morel, J.A. Hobson, F. Pethick Lawrence, Ramsey Macdonald, Arthur Ponsonby and Mrs Swanwick. Tried to give them a sketch of Belgium and Germany and interview with von Jagow. Utterly failed to do this either with coherence, clearness or point. Realized how mentally exhausted I was and the dreadful straight-up chairs of an office tire my heart and wholly empty my brain. Made a mess of it in fact. Mrs S. left in the middle, and recollecting that she had told her Committee contrary to the promise made me, I was obliged to ask her as she left the room to keep private what she had heard. As her reply did not satisfy me I felt obliged to write to her and explain my reason for underlining this caution and after some time a stiff apology was sent. Went away feeling I had lost a great opportunity for interesting these men. At 3 p.m. Lord Loreburn came to see me. He seemed very old and shaky with a twitching head and neck – his large blue eyes still round and candid like a child’s. I found him loquacious but difficult to talk to. Lord C. has warned me of this. He talked so much that I could not put in a word edgeways. He seemed so full of his own small experiences at his home near Deal [in Kent, south-east England] which he seemed to think in the war zone! Said he and his wife stayed there to give courage to the peasantry. Continual guns of aeroplanes of both sides. Affected his dog. Very pessimistic about the future – believed universal revolution must come at the close of the war. Said government ought to negotiate and he had said so publicly and his opinions were well known but it was useless to keep nagging. Counseled me to write down all I wished to convey to Grey – in any case to write down all that von Jagow said, not what I said – and keep it – and if I desired he would hand it to Grey and see he had it. I asked him about Lord Northcliffe and if it would be well to tell him and enlist his aid. He doubted its utility but said he believed Northcliffe to be an honest man! The talk on the whole, though with points full of interest, disappointed me. Later, Mrs Buxton came to hear as much foreign news as I could give her and I delivered Elisabeth Rotten’s message. Afterwards, other callers …
Wednesday, July 12th Busy getting my pictures framed. Saw Mr Massingham at the Nation office and had a long talk with him over Ruhleben Camp – found him very sympathetic and lamenting impossibility of finding the truth. He
urged me to see Northcliffe and gave me a letter to him. In his next issue he was splendid. I was relieved he promised to modify public feeling about Camps and to support principles of exchange and total exchange. Wrote and wrote …9
Once again Emily had been told to write in to Foreign Office. This time it was about the needs in Belgium:
12th July 1916
Dear Lord Robert Cecil,10
I could have told you better than I can write but I will try to go straight to the point.
Can you, as Minister of Blockade, possibly arrange to let the Belgians have more food and let them have greater variety?
Three weeks ago I watched them being fed in Brussels and had a long talk with the Belgian who organized the Communal kitchen where they come for bread and soup. He spoke of the general enfeeblement of this section of the population which was showing itself in the development of tubercular trouble attacking the glands of the neck.
There were, he said, some 400 cases in Brussels and it was on the increase. These cases need super-alimentation, and to prevent a serious state of things all those being fed by the Comité National of Belgium need greater variety of food – such as more coffee, sugar, bacon and lard. Unfortunately the Belgians don’t seem very fond of rice but they should eat more or have something which can take its place.
These people are not of the class ordinarily destitute, but respectable people who are without work owing to the war. It is true that in Brussels and to some extent in the smaller towns the German authorities have instituted works of various kinds in order to give, as they do, employment to many hundreds of women and girls, and the material for these is supplied from Germany. It remains however a sad fact that the factories where these people would for the most part be earning their livelihood are closed for want of raw material.
Would you consider letting raw material for these factories pass in like manner as the foodstuffs of the American Commission under guarantees, as then the Belgians could re-adjust their lives? I believe only their glass factories can work for which the raw material is found in the country.
I venture to ask this help for those unfortunate people because I feel sure the guarantees given by the German authorities there are faithfully kept. No food brought in by England’s permission passes to Germany nor is it given to her occupying troops. I believe the head of the Political Department Baron von [der] Lancken and his colleagues Count Harrach (cousin of Lord Acton) and von Moltke to be men of the highest honour and I had to see a good deal of them.
The request I am making comes, however, from the Belgian of whom I spoke – and from my own observations in going about the country. If factory work were resumed, at least in part, it would help solve the food question as people could earn money to buy the food which the country itself produces.
I have etc. etc.
One official at the Foreign Office wrote:
This lady is a person with whom we must be very much on our guard. She acts as a German agent and there is a question of her being interned. In these circumstances I suggest that we should limit ourselves to saying politely that since we deal direct with the American Commission, her intervention is unnecessary.’11
So the reply came as the same flat disinterested answer from the Foreign Office. It arrived on 22 July – in a curt note addressed to ‘Madam’. In fact in the Foreign Office, at the instigation of the American Commission, they had been willing to send raw materials to Belgium but said the Germans had turned down the scheme:12
Thursday, July 13th In the morning Emergency Camp Committee escorted thereto by Mr Rollo Russell. Astonished to find Thompson Elliot* of old Tokenbury days Chairman. Large number present and very sympathetic. Confined my remarks almost entirely to Ruhleben Camp and food in Germany. After lunch Prof. Battin** came to see me and we had a delightful talk. He brought from Holland Aletta Jacob’s message – she not having fully understood the letter I had written her from Berne. I explained. Lady Lyall was to have come but did not. We agreed to meet again.
Mr Morel came about 4 p.m. and we talked about his book being now issued and he promised me a copy. He looked tired and over-worked. He asked more details that I had given at the UDC and urged also that I should write all down. Then followed Chrystal MacMillan who was very friendly and ere she left May Ellis full of sympathy as usual. Both longing to know about my talk with von Jagow in Germany, but characteristically Chrystal asked and May did not.
Friday July 14th I kept quiet in the morning preparing to talk to Lord Northcliffe at 3.30 p.m. Went to Blackfriars by bus – the old house very interesting early Georgian. As I could not do stairs, Lord Northcliffe came down very good-humouredly to see me in a long, quiet room. I sat in the window seat and he somewhat troubled by the light faced me, shading his eyes. He asked what I wanted. Then burst into a wild and unreasonable attack upon the Germans, their habits and their characters. Said he knew them well … I waited quietly till this outburst was over – it wasted some ten minutes of the interview and was like a nasty froth which had to be given off before he calmed down and became quite a sane, normal man. He scanned my face intently all the time but I never moved a muscle. I think it was partly done to try what position I should take. Nevertheless, I find it a habit in most of the belligerent countries, this necessity of working off their hatred and animosity after which they become human and normal.
When sane he seemed a commonplace, good-humoured man, capable, businesslike, with a broad, low forehead and no height to his rather boyish head – means well and quite unaware there are such things as ideals. Asked how I got to Germany – said he sent two men every week and had from the beginning of the war and received back two men every week. ‘Bribery,’ he said, ‘they are a people that will do anything for money.’ I thought the man who bribes is even worse than the man who accepted it but I said nothing – merely that I went openly.
I spoke of Ruhleben and at first he said what did it matter! only 3,500 men; why, that moment he had received a wire that this number had fallen today. I said, ‘Yes, but they are soldiers and go voluntarily. These are civilians trapped against their will. Those might lose life or limb, these were losing reason’. I told him of Lord Newton and the negotiations going on and the government’s fear of public opinion – First making that opinion by misguidance and wrong information and then when it was excited, saying they must be guided by it. I told him I was asking the Press to keep as quiet as possible about our civilians and to restrain and modify public opinion lest the public were excited and demanded reprisals and the government would give in.
He then went off at a tangent about the Govmt, running down all the Ministers – knew them all – wretched set of fellows – would go for all of them – muddled everything.
Here the Diary ends.
Lord Northcliffe wrote to Emily from The Times on 17 July13 to say that he had gone ‘at once’ to the American Ambassador who told him that the Germans had refused ‘the very terms of exchange you mentioned to me’. As he, Northcliffe, was leaving for France the next day he said he was ‘reluctantly obliged to defer further help till he got back’. He had tried to telephone her. As an afterthought he suggested she contact General Booth of the Salvation Army, which she did.
Notes
* Lord Devonport who was to become Minister of Food Control, was the first Chairman of the Port of London Authority and founder of the International Stores.
** Mrs J.R. Green had helped Emily after the Anglo-Boer War in setting up Home Industries in South Africa.
* To Lord Newton’s credit he had done a complete change around. In May he had considered such action as hers ‘perfectly monstrous’.
** Both Sir Lewis Mallet and Sir Horace Rumbold were career diplomats. Horace Rumbold was later to replace Grant Duff as minister in Switzerland.
* Jowett was Chairman of the Independent Labour Party.
* Elliot lived not too far from the Hobhouses in Cornwall.
** Battin was an American professor, international organiser for
the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches.
1. TNA FO372/894; Kaminski p. 304
2. Ibid., p. 314
3. Lord Newton diaries,
4. JHB collection
5. Ibid.
6. Kaminski p. 315; FO 372/894
7. JHB collection
8. TNA FO 372/894
9. Kaminski p. 315
10. JHB collection
11. Kaminski p. 316; FO382/1167
12. Ibid.
13. JHB collection
12
RUHLEBEN AND PEACE
W e do not know why Emily’s Diary ended abruptly on 14 July though on 16 July Emily went to see Lord Newton and will have told him about her interview with German Foreign Secretary Jagow. Lord Newton was much more sensible and amenable than the fossils who had been in the Foreign Office for years.
Newton’s letter of invitation to Emily was as follows:
6 Belgrave Square, SW
July 12 1916
Private
Dear Miss Hobhouse,1
If it is any satisfaction to you, I shall be very happy to see you privately and unofficially as you suggest.
If it is not inconvenient to you, perhaps, if you happen to be in London you will call here on Sunday, at any time between 10.30 and 2.
Believe me, Yours very truly
Newton
What Lord Newton thought of the story of her German visit we do not know. But to have put his upper-class Belgrave Square home at Emily’s disposal, on a Sunday, his only day off, must have meant he had a sufficiently good opinion of her to make the effort. Lord Newton kept a diary but there is no indication about this meeting in it, nor what he did with the information. (From Emily’s notes we know the meeting took place at 10.45 a.m.) Newton was a trained diplomat and a good public servant, so he will have passed on the information, possibly at the same time cautioning Emily to silence. Perhaps as Emily could not tell the whole tale it seemed a little unbelievable.
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