30 Roosevelt treated TR to EKR, 11 June 1914 (KRP).
31 Plainclothes detectives The New York Times, 9, 10 June 1914.
32 To Roosevelt’s mild irritation TR to EKR, 11 June 1914 (KRP); The New York Times, 9 June 1914.
33 A guest list drawn KR to ERD, 1 June 1914 (ERDP); The New York Times, 16 July 1914; KR to ERD, 4, 30 Apr. 1913 (ERDP). EKR did not record the wedding in her otherwise conscientiously kept diary.
34 “I believe” TR to EKR, 11 June 1914 (KRP).
35 He stopped in Paris The New York Times, 7 June 1914; Straus, Under Four Administrations, 360. Herrick, who had known TR since the early days of the McKinley administration, was impressed with the balance of his political views and the ease with which he held his own in conversation with members of the French Academy. Herrick wrote afterward to his son, “I believe it to be an undeniable fact—that Roosevelt is one of the greatest, if not the greatest man of the time.” T. Bentley Mott, Myron T. Herrick: Friend of France (New York, 1929), 103–4.
36 Paris that June Owen Wister visited Paris at the same time, and was struck by its air of dilapidation and self-doubt (“The French face … too often a face of worried sadness, or revolt”) in contrast with Germany’s clicking efficiency and “contentment.” (Wister, The Pentecost of Calamity, 54.) See also Ecksteins, Rites of Spring, 46.
37 Georges Clemenceau’s passionate Clemenceau, Discours de guerre, 17; Strachan, The First World War, 46; François Lesure and Roger Nichols, eds., Debussy Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 292. Debussy, writing to Robert Godet, was looking back to the Franco-Prussian War, which he regarded as a catastrophe for French culture.
38 “suffrage bomb” The Washington Post, 15 June 1914.
39 The old church See above, 604. The British prime minister H. H. Asquith had also been married there.
40 Obscurely basking Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 307–8.
41 Afterward the Lees Lee, A Good Innings, 1.523ff. Chequers was deeded to the nation in 1921.
42 country palace near Prague Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 305.
43 Wilhelm neither Ibid.
44 While Roosevelt Nevins, Henry White, 326; The Washington Post, 18 June 1914; The New York Times, 17 June 1914.
45 Roosevelt more or less TR’s address, “A Journey in Central Brazil,” is printed in Geographical Journal, 45.2 (Feb. 1915), with a magnificent foldout map based on the observations of Lyra and Rondon.
46 The nearest he got Geographical Journal, 45.2 (Feb. 1915); Daily Express, 17 June 1914.
47 “This is my” The New York Times, 18 June 1914. See also TR, Letters, 7.779–80.
48 He used virtually The New York Times, 18 June 1914; Lee, A Good Innings, 1.524. TR was well acquainted with Balfour’s views on this subject, having already devoured abstracts of the former Tory leader’s Gifford Lectures, given at the University of Glasgow the previous winter. (Balfour to TR, 29 Sept. 1915 [AJB].) The lectures were published in 1915 under the title Theism and Humanism.
49 He called on The New York Times, 16 June 1914.
50 other members of the government Robert Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (New York, 2003), 166–72. The following supplementary list of other persons seen by TR during his short visit to England is given simply to indicate the breadth of his British acquaintance on the eve of World War I: Lloyd George, chancellor of the exchequer, and Lord Lewis Harcourt, colonial secretary; Sir Edward Carson, Austen Chamberlain, Henry Chaplin, George Cave, and Viscount Walter Hume Long, leaders of the Tory Opposition; Lord Northcliffe, the press baron; Geoffrey Robinson Dawson and J. L. Garvin, editors respectively of The Times and The Observer; Sir Bertrand Dawson, physician to the King; Fred S. Oliver, the department store magnate; Edward Lyttelton, headmaster of Eton; George Otto Trevelyan, the historian; Sir Leander Starr Jameson, the Boer War raider; and Lord Roberts, the apostle of war preparedness.
51 “Excuse me sir” Lee, A Good Innings, 1.526. Alice Longworth, who had crossed over with her father at the end of May, did not accompany him on his return voyage.
52 Five minutes after TR, Letters, 7.769; TR interviewed by The New York Times, 19, 25 June 1914.
53 “When Roosevelt” Walter Hines Page to WW, 12 July 1914 (WWP).
54 Roosevelt had rejected See Morris, Theodore Rex, chaps. 18 and 19.
55 Roosevelt angrily insisted Abbott, Impressions of TR, 140. Abbott was a fellow passenger on the Imperator, and witnessed TR’s “thoroughly lively” interview with the Colombian diplomat.
56 “If anybody” The New York Times, 26 June 1914. Du Bois had been minister to Colombia during the Taft administration. For a more extended statement of his views, politely but damagingly critical of TR, see ibid., 2 July 1914.
57 The handling of Ibid.
58 He went on The New York Times, 25 June 1914.
59 In doing so The casualties in the Panamanian Revolution, both victims of Colombian artillery fire, were one donkey and a Chinese immigrant. Morris, Theodore Rex, 290.
60 “We have gone” The New York Times, 12 May 1914.
61 a run for the U.S. Senate Pinchot failed to unseat Boies Penrose.
62 “You may expect” The New York Times, 28 June 1914; Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 396. For the similar warning of a Harvard doctor who examined TR on the eve of his graduation, see Morris, The Rise of TR, 108–9.
63 “Oh! I guess” The New York Times, 29 June 1914.
64 “Es ist nichts” Stürmer, The German Empire, 100.
65 His assassination Strachan, The First World War, 10.
66 Apparently, Franz Ferdinand The archduke was warned to stay away by Bosnian authorities, but he did not take their alarmism seriously.
67 After a journey EKR diary, 30 June 1914 (TRC); Titusville (Pa.) Herald and The New York Times, 1 July 1914; Greenville (Pa.) Evening Record, 1 July 1914.
68 “It is such” The New York Times, 1 July 1914.
69 “thoroughly exhausted” Lewis, TR, 415–16. The Titusville (Pa.) Herald, 1 July 1914, also noted TR’s husky voice and lack of gestural force.
70 “What on earth” Lewis, TR, 453.
71 Roosevelt was back The New York Times, 2 July 1914.
72 “It was not” EKR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 15 Oct. 1913 (ARC); TR, Letters, 7.772.
73 He would still Lawrence Abbott to his father, 13 May 1914 (ABB). John McGrath, 23, had replaced Frank Harper as TR’s secretary.
74 “If I had been” TR, Letters, 7.768.
75 In Berlin, Wilhelm Count Szögyéni to Count Berchtold, 5 July 1914, in GHDI: German History in Documents and Images (http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/).
76 “a serious complication” Ibid.
77 “The future lies” Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 313.
78 While Washington waited Oakland Tribune, Ludington (Mich.) Daily News, Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, Nevada State Journal, Titusville (Pa.) Herald, Orange County (N.Y.) Times, and Brownwood (Tex.) Daily Bulletin, 29–30 June 1914.
CHAPTER 18: THE GREAT ACCIDENT
1 Epigraph Robinson, Collected Poems, 12.
2 When the Imperator The New York Times, 16, 17 July 1914.
3 little Richard This ill-fated boy was the eighth Richard to be born in eight generations of the Derby family in the United States. TR, Letters, 8.1015.
4 So would Ted EKR diary, 16–31 July 1914 (TRC).
5 That young lady Belle Willard Roosevelt had just turned 22.
6 the slender graduate John C. O’Laughlin to wife, 15 Sept. 1914 (OL).
7 A delegation The New York Times, 19 July 1914.
8 In New York State Ibid., 23 July 1914.
9 On the same Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 318.
10 The terms of this ultimatum On 8 July, the German ambassador in Vienna delivered a virtual command from the Kaiser, stating “most emphatically that Berlin expected the [Dual] Monarchy to act against Serbia, and that Germany would not understand i
t if … the present opportunity were allowed to go by … without a blow struck.” Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 62.
11 In mid-Atlantic The New York Times, 1 Aug. 1914. The Kaiser himself had suggested, as early as 20 July, that German liners in foreign waters be put on war alert. Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 69.
12 he allowed Theodore Roosevelt See Morris, Theodore Rex, 388–91.
13 “Then I must” Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 87.
14 At 11:10 A.M. Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 320; Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 143; Strachan, The First World War, 10; Mark Mitchell and Allan Evans, citing the Austrian imperial archives in Moriz Rosenthal in Word and Music (Bloomington, Ind., 2006), 173.
15 Wilhelm II, however Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 322; Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 58.
16 To Edith Wharton Wharton, A Backward Glance, 338, specifically describing the atmosphere in Paris on 31 July 1914.
17 On 29 July Strachan, The First World War, 11.
18 The idea of a world war The first potential belligerent to invoke it seriously appears to have been the Hungarian prime minister István Tisza, who warned on 8 July that an Austrian attack on Serbia would lead to “intervention by Russia and consequently world war.” Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 61.
19 RUSSIA READY The Washington Post, 30 July 1914.
20 “It’s the Slav” Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 326.
21 “An ignoble war” These exchanges between “Willy” and “Nicky” are taken from Michael S. Neiberg, ed., The World War I Reader: Primary and Secondary Sources (New York, 2007), 46–47.
22 more than one ally Strictly speaking, Britain was not allied to France under the Triple Entente, as France was to Russia. Strategically, however, neither Britain nor France could stand for German mobilization in the summer of 1914.
23 When Goschen G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914 (London, 1926), vol. 11, doc. 293.
24 The combined vagueness Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 82. The double assurance of Wilhelm II and Bethmann-Hollweg on 5 July that Germany would stand by Austria in its Serbian quarrel is known to historians as “the blank check” that precipitated World War I.
25 The last forty-eight Ibid., 118.
26 “those peace people” Nevins, Henry White, 502.
27 “Germany does not” Moltke to Bethmann-Hollweg, 30 July 1914, in GHDI.
28 Forces for good TR, Works, 14.274–75.
29 the new autocrats The phrase is that of Martin Gilbert in A History of the Twentieth Century, 329.
30 “the French Socialist Republic” Superscript by the Kaiser on St. Petersburg dispatch, 25 July 1914, GHDI, no. 160.
31 “That is the match” Wister, The Pentecost of Calamity, 10–11. See also Wister, Roosevelt, 321.
32 for the first time in history Gerard, My Four Years in Germany, 70.
33 That insult Since the Reichstag elections of 1912, and especially since the Zabern affair of 1913, when the German crown prince had actually proposed a military coup d’état to Bethmann-Hollweg, Prussian conservatives “had come to regard war as a ‘tempering of the nation.’ ” Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 55–56.
34 Ordinary Berliners The following description of Berlin on the eve of World War I owes much to the vivid account of Modris Ecksteins in Rites of Spring, chap. 2. See also Lee, Outbreak of the First World War, 121.
35 Holy flame Author’s translation.
36 “a dance of death” Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 326. There were similar demonstrations of war fever in other German cities, including Munich. Sullivan, Our Times, 5.5.
CHAPTER 19: A HURRICANE OF STEEL
1 Epigraph Robinson, Collected Poems, 74.
2 “The situation” TR to QR, 2 Aug. 1914 (ERDP).
3 A packhorse QR to KR, 2 Feb. 1916 (KRP).
4 As a little girl Longworth, Crowded Hours, 235.
5 Balfour’s dream See 71.
6 he also had his Saxon side The Kaiser, flattering TR during his presidency, had come up with a triple adjective: “Let us rejoice that, thank Heaven, the Anglo-Saxon-Germanic Race is still able to produce such a specimen.” (Wilhelm II to TR, 14 Jan. 1904 [TRP].) For TR’s German days, see Putnam, TR, 102–13, or Morris, The Rise of TR, 43–47.
7 “From that time” TR, An Autobiography, 274.
8 “I wish I had” TR to Finley Peter Dunne, quoted in Ellis, Mr. Dooley’s America, 154.
9 “the battle forced” Quote in Ecksteins, Rites of Spring, 93.
10 “If they refuse” Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York, 1962, 1979), 141.
11 “The lamps are going out” Grey, Twenty-five Years, 2.20. There was a personal poignancy to Grey’s metaphor. He was afflicted with dimming vision, and had been told by oculists that he would become functionally blind in a few years. Ibid., 61–62.
12 “You’ve got to” Felix Frankfurter, eyewitness.
13 Booth would only say Charles Booth (1840–1916) was a stellar example of the high Victorian ideal of a businessman devoting himself to the making of money and enlightened philanthropy. He was author of a 17-volume social study, Life and Labor of the People in London (1891–1903). The steamer Aidan, which had altered its itinerary to bring the ailing TR home from Brazil in May 1914, belonged to Booth’s fleet. His brother, Alfred Booth, was chairman of the Cunard Line, which on this same day delayed the departure from New York of its flagship Lusitania.
14 “would result in” TR, Letters, 8.826.
15 “The European world” The New York Times, 4 Aug. 1914. WW reckoned without the strong inherited patriotism of German-Americans. When the Reich declared war on Russia, the New York Herald ran a banner headline, ALLE DEUTSCHEN HERZEN SCHLAGEN HEUTE HOHER (“All German hearts beat faster today”). Sullivan, Our Times, 5.8.
16 When other powers Japan declared war against Germany on 23 Aug. and Turkey against the Allies on 11 Nov. 1914. Italy hesitated until 24 May 1915 before turning against its former Triple Entente partner, Austria-Hungary.
17 Theodore Roosevelt’s gift The Washington Post reported on this date, 5 Aug. 1914, that strategists in the nation’s capital regarded the Canal as “the biggest war menace that hangs over America and the western hemisphere.”
18 “God has stricken me” Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson, 334.
19 “Let us be” The New York Times, 6 Aug. 1914.
20 “I simply do not” TR to George S. Viereck, 8 Aug. 1914 (TRC).
21 Having lost See Morris, The Rise of TR, 229–31. TR sent WW a supportive telegram even before Ellen Wilson died. “Very deep sympathy. Earnestly hope reports of Mrs. Wilson’s condition are exaggerated.” TR to WW, 5 Aug. 1914 (TRP).
22 “It is not” TR, Letters, 7.790.
23 “The melancholy thing” TR, Letters, 7.794. Münsterberg (1863–1916) was one of the most eloquent of TR’s German-American friends attempting to recruit him as a spokesman for their cause. A pioneer industrial psychologist, antifeminist, and protégé of William James, he died suddenly in 1916 after publishing The Photoplay, the first major work of film theory.
24 The message he Papen, Memoirs, 14; TR, Letters, 8.1165.
25 Roosevelt bowed back TR, describing this visit later, dated it as occurring “within a week of the outbreak of the war,” and identified his caller only as “a young member of the German Embassy staff in Washington,” and “I think a Count.” (TR, Letters, 8.1165; Leary, Talks with T.R., 41.) But the evidence that it was Papen is, on top of these qualifications, compelling. In his memoirs, Papen mentions being entrusted with Wilhelm II’s goodwill message before being posted to the United States in the new year of 1914. He also states that he came to New York at this time, straight from an espionage visit to Mexico, in order to set up a base for further spying and propaganda work at the Manhattan headquarters of “a German firm in Hanover Street.” (Papen, Memoirs, 21, 31.) Pap
en left Galveston, Tex., at midnight on 4 Aug. 1914, and probably saw TR in New York on 7 Aug. TR was back in Oyster Bay the following day.
26 “In common with” TR, “The Foreign Policy of the United States,” The Outlook, 22 Aug. 1914.
27 daily in black headlines “The dispatches were as if black flocks of birds, frightened from their familiar rookeries, came darting across the ocean, their excited cries a tiding of stirring events.” (Sullivan, Our Times, 5.2.) See ibid., 1–46, and American Review of Reviews, Oct. 1914, for the impact of the war on American newspapers.
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